We are here today for 100 Climate Conversations, a project that I think is absolutely crucial right now. Today is number 29 of 100 conversations happening here at the museum, this beautiful, gorgeous building that we’re so lucky to be in. Before we go any further, I’d like to acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the ancestral homelands upon which we meet today, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We respect our Elders past, present and future, and recognise their continuous connection to Country. I’d also like to extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples joining us here or listening in today on the podcast.

My name is Pat Abboud. I’m a journalist, documentary maker and TV presenter. I’m very excited about today’s session. Xuemei Bai is a human ecologist and distinguished Professor of Urban Environment and Human Ecology at the Australian National University, Fenner School of Environment and Society. Previously, she was a senior principal research scientist at CSIRO and a senior researcher at Environmental Research Institutes in Japan. She’s a Commissioner with the Earth Commission and a lead author on the Sixth Assessment Report for the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We are so thrilled to have her join us today. Please join me in welcoming Xuemei Bai. How does the introduction of you sound like? It’s really, I suppose it’s complex because you do so much, but describing you as an ecologist. Does that feel like it fits for you?

Yeah, I mean, I have difficulties describing who I am and what I do because I have so much sort of complex background. I started off as a structural geologist for my undergraduate at Peking University, and in a class of 30 people, we only had three girls and things like that. But that was also the time when this remote sensing, which is using the satellite to understand the environment a bit better. Remote sensing is with the satellite going up in the sky, we use those images, the photographs sort of from the satellite to understand what’s going on, on the surface of our Earth. So, that’s the new kind of technology that in the 80s and towards the early 90s, it became quite popular. So as that came along, I started to be really interested in that. So, I went to University of Tokyo to do my postgraduate degree using the remote sensing and geographical information system, which is again combining some of that data with the on the ground data and try to understand the environment or the human nature of the relationships, things like that. So, that’s how I spent my five years at Tokyo University doing my degree. And after five years of staring at those images of, these satellite images, and each of the pixels is 100 kilometres by 100 kilometres in size. So, the whole world can be in one A4 map and then you start to process that, all the time.

So, you travel through an A4 piece of paper?

Yes, I mean, the whole world basically. So, it’s like after five years of doing that, you started to really wonder what’s behind it, each of these pixels, 100 by 100 kilometre pixels. So, after I got my degree, I joined the Ecology Research Institute and really started to know the real processes that are happening on the ground and things like that. And that’s how I started to get interested in urban ecology, to understand urban environment, the ecological side of it and things like that. And ever since, I’m just fascinated about this urban system idea, and I stayed there ever since.

Out of curiosity, I mean for someone that focuses so specifically on urbanisation, how many of us live in cities worldwide?

It’s more than half of the population right now are urban dwellers. And I think the UN projections say by 2050, two out of three people in the world will be living in some sort of cities.

And in terms of Australia, specifically, how many of us here in Australia live in cities?

I think about 90 per cent. I mean, Australia’s a huge country in terms of land. But –

It’s very sparse.

Sparse. But most of the population are really living in those major cities along the coastline. So, we are really an urban nation indeed. And most of the developed countries like OECD countries, I mean it’s typical about 85 or even about 90. That’s typical for all developed countries.

That’s a really perfect segue I suppose, because my next thought is really centred around how cities impact climate change. But how do cities impact climate change?

So, the latest IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the AR Sixth Report, which is the sixth round of this IPCC report, says over 70 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions can be traced back to cities. Various different activities in cities and this number has been growing over the last five years alone. I think we had about 5 to 10 per cent increase –

This is worldwide.

Worldwide, yeah. Increase of GHG emissions. So, we are a huge emitter and we have big responsibilities and that seems to be growing. I mean, with more people living in cities and also if you look at, for example, like China or other East Asian parts of the world, there is a huge growing middle-class population and the consumption of these people will be one of the major drivers of the increase of GHG, our greenhouse gas emission, for example. So yeah, cities are major contributors to these climate change issues.

So, that’s a big picture response. Let’s sort of focus day to day. What are the sort of, more sort of minuscule impacts that most of us probably wouldn’t think about day to day?

If you look at cities, they are powered by mostly fossil fuels, in most cities, right. We have this power plant either burning coal or burning oil or gas, and then that generates electricity and that’s transferred to our household. And that really powers almost everything in the city. And also, if you look at transportation, I mean, Australia is a heavily automobile dependent sort of society and where most of our cars are still internal combustion sort of engine burning gasoline. So, all these things really contribute to emitting GHG from cities and also older things for example, the clothes we wear or the things we buy in our household. Those things are produced probably not in our cities, but somewhere else, in another part of the world but producing those things also emit a lot of greenhouse gas.

The choices that we make really matters. And also, I’m saying that the governmental structural change is important. And there’s also a role for us as individuals, as an individual sort of agent, right. I mean, we choose our government, fortunately in this part of the world, and you can have a say, each one of us, you can have a bit more keen interest about what your city is doing in terms of transportation, in terms of are we providing our energy in terms of 100 per cent renewable or not. And if the citizens have more interest in those things, and then they keep asking their city government say, ‘Hey, how are we doing in that front?’ And that will put enormous sort of pressure –

Local councils, councils –

Local councils, State Government –

State Government, Federal Government.

Exactly. Then that sort of action can really push the government to think of it more progressively and I think that’s really, really important and that’s probably even more important than our daily just try to save a little bit electricity. I’m not saying this is not important. That’s very important but –

Part of the big picture.

Exactly. But we should also have this kind of agency try to change the structural environment.

Why are cities well-placed for action on climate change?

I mean, apart from this is the biggest sort of contributor to the climate change. I mean, it’s also suffers a lot from climate change impact because we know already at this point we will be having, already having millions and millions of people suffering from drought, flood. I mean, living in Australia, we all have this sort of experience, right? And we can make that connection saying, actually this is from climate change and we should do something. And also, they are impacted a bit, much more than for example, rural areas. And we have so much more asset concentrated in cities, so you have to take actions.

I mean, in many parts of the world, about 80 per cent of their GDP is located in, created, generated in cities. So, if those places are going under climate change impact, what are we going to do? So, you do have very strong motivation as well to do something. But on the other hand, it’s also really a very good unit of the government to take actions because the city councils, they are sort of the government level that are closed to the public, the general public and they can take agile sort of actions. They are less bound by some of the political debate or ideological concepts and things like that. And we have been seeing this time and again in the world. You have this visionary mayor come in and he’s got a good idea about this climate change and things like that, he wants to take action, then he can actually take action quickly. So, cities are much more agile and if they want to do something, they can do something. So, in that sense, I think cities are really a perfect unit of government to actually take action.

In a snapshot, what makes a great city? Because a great city essentially, hopefully means that we’re contributing positively to bringing down the effects of or curbing the effects of climate change?

No, absolutely. I think a great city, I mean from a general perspective, you like to have really vibrant city life, that the city environment is able to support a really healthy, sort of living, livable place. And also, the city doesn’t really have too much disparity, so everybody’s having a decent life and things like that. But from an environmental perspective, I think there are a couple of things that really make cities, a great city. For example, first of all, the inner environment should be [inaudible] and good so that people don’t suffer from heavy air pollution or get sick from those things. And externally, cities don’t really produce too much externality, the negative things putting out into the environment, and GHG emission is one of them. And you don’t pollute your water to the downstream and things like that. And yeah, basically inside you have a good environment, externally, you don’t make too much negative impact and you don’t draw too much of those resources from outside. A bit more circular knowing, can have a bit more, don’t produce too much outside and you can recycle those things and then reuse those.

I want to move to a very specific area of your work, in your research particularly, the Global South. What is the Global South?

So broadly, Global South is really about those cities or countries that are traditionally less privileged. So, mostly like developing countries, mostly. And it’s set – I mean, we are sort of in the south, but we are not part of the Global South. We are one of the really privileged OECD countries, right. So Global South is mostly about really developing nations or developing cities.

And so, in terms of climate change, why are the stakes are so high for cities in the Global South?

I mean, if you look at urbanisation, we just talked about the urbanisation will be continuing into the next two decades and things like that. And we will be adding about 2 billion new population into our cities by 2050. But 90 per cent of that will be happening in developing countries’ cities. So, just think about that magnitude, right? It’s huge. And as we all know, the cities in the Global South, they are already suffering from so many different issues, like the social issues, economic issues, environmental issues. So, they have a much more complex kind of challenges there and then you have this increasing population coming in. And also because of the climate change, and climate change we already know, that they will be impacting the Global South cities disproportionately, much more. And because of the capacity, they also have less ability to actually cope with all of those sorts of challenges.

So do some of the sort of processes and strategies that have been developed, in developed countries, work in the Global South. Can they be applied, adapted? Or is it the fact that the city and the makeup of cities is so different that completely new strategies are required?

I think it’s both. I think there are many generalisable lessons that can be drawn from developing country/cities in the Global North and then try to see what Global South cities can learn from looking at the history and looking at the trajectories. That’s very important. But on the other hand, each city, they are each their own and each different city in the Global South, they have much more complex challenges.

For example, if you look at Mumbai, right, about half of its population are living in informal settlements where they don’t really have a formal governance sort of structure. And they are often developed on the land where it is not supposed to be developed and could be a flood plain and things like that. And they don’t have formal infrastructure, so there are so many challenges going on there. But in those areas, they have their own local, vibrant, local economy going on and they have their own strong communities going on. So, it’s very hard to transfer some sort of lessons or good practice from the Global North, like in Sydney, just stop it there.

Because the makeup of the cities is so different.

It’s so different, yeah. Each of them just have to find their own solutions.

So it’s localised.

Very localised, contextualised and tailored sort of solutions are needed. And the thing is, there is no single silver bullet sort of solutions that can be say, ‘Okay, if as far as you do this, you’ll be great.’ It’s not like that because many of the climate change impacts in those cities are also compounded by the fact that they already don’t have proper infrastructure, they don’t have proper water supply, nothing, none of those. So, they still need to develop, to some extent, and have their infrastructure in place and things like that. But on the other hand, we have this GHG that is really threatening our life, so it’s such a big sort of conundrum there.

On the one hand, you should, develop and we should let them have a decent life. But on the other hand, they also need to cope with this climate change. I mean, I think there’s statistics that say by 2050, there will be three billion people living in informal areas. So, I always think that probably is the biggest challenge that is facing in our time. And I think, of course, the local government, local city government, as well as national government, they have lots of things to do. But for Global North nations, I mean, we should do everything we could to try to help them in terms of technology transfer, in terms of financial aid and things like that.

In terms of the Global North, and the fact that we have all that infrastructure, we have the technology, we have the funding and resources to develop solutions. I remember walking through one particular part of Gaza where I discovered local communities developing their own water filtration systems and I thought, Wow, that’s incredible. I’ve never seen that in practice the way that they were doing, the specific way they were doing it, which was their own solution. Surely there are things that we can also learn from the Global South. Because technology and infrastructure is one thing but sometimes small villages come up with solutions that could be potentially applied right across the world in terms of making our cities better?

Absolutely. Absolutely. And this is one of the things that we’ve been really advocating. Because there are many, many great things, small seed of hope and small seed of good practice are happening in these Global South cities. And there’s a reason for that. If you are limited by your small budget, for example, then you have to think about how to use this more innovatively. And for example, like the bus rapid transit system, I think, many cities in Australia even have it, and that was invented in Curitiba, a Brazilian city. And that’s because the mayor thought, I only have this tiny budget, right, what am I going to do? I cannot build a subway, but I need to improve my transportation. And that’s how they invented this system. And then the system later on has, I think, spread into more than 200 cities.

Been replicated all over the world.

Exactly. So those things, that’s why I mean, in developing in the Global South cities, people are innovating quite a bit. And there are many, many more smaller innovations. For example, in Jordan, they realised some of the traditional clay roofs, they actually protect them much better from the heat than any concrete structure and things like that. And it’s not only in Jordan, in Nigeria as well, they realise that the mud roof, flat mud roof, it’s much better in withstanding the flood, for example. So those things are really good lessons that we can really learn from this local sort of traditional knowledge and small scale–-

Small, small scale, but with global impact.

Absolutely. And just think about if those sorts of small practices can be replicated into many places, low cost and things like that, it could add up into a huge impact. We know, concrete things, for example, is the third biggest GHG emitter.

So, if you think about in many of these Global South cities, if you can use some of the traditional materials or for example, like use bamboo or wood to build your high-rise structure, which is actually started, then you can think about what would be the impact? And if we do this business as usual and build all the same kind of infrastructure in our Global South cities and try to provide the same kind of service, then we probably will be emitting like 226 gigaton of CO2. And I’m sure it doesn’t make sense –

That, that just seems so unrealistic. It’s such a huge number.

I mean, let me try to put that into context. For example, if we are trying to stay within this Paris Agreement goal of staying within 1.5 degrees increase of temperature, right, then we’re probably, depending on a different scenario, but we probably have about 400 to 500 gigaton. And just providing infrastructure in the Global South cities will require about half of that, if we are trying to provide a decent life. So, we must innovate, must think about alternatives to our current way of building our cities.

Is it too idealistic? I mean, I think I’m probably the world’s biggest idealist, but I think idealism is important to make change, right? Is it too idealistic to think that some of those small-scale initiatives could be easily adapted in bigger cities and really make a dent in the sort of fight against climate change?

I think absolutely they could. But I wouldn’t think, I wouldn’t say it’s easy because we are all creatures of different history, culture. So, it wouldn’t be easy, but there is hope. I think it is quite possible that once we cross a kind of tipping point in our choice and in our behaviour, then big change can happen. I mean, some of our research, recent research has showed that, for example, like electric vehicle adoption in Shanghai, which has the biggest number of electric vehicles in the whole world in a single city. Yeah. And you know, the peer effect. They were saying, we did a survey and people are saying, ‘You know, if 30 per cent of my friends having EVs instead of the other car, then I do feel the pressure of choosing an EV, and that’s at a personal level. But at a government level to have introduced a huge set of policies that include, for example, in Shanghai, if you want to buy a car, you have to pay about 20,000 Australian dollars equivalent, just to buy the plate.

Wow.

The right to buy a car is actually –

To register your car.

Registration. Yeah. So, it’s a huge amount of money and you have to go through a lottery to get that because the government tried to limit the number of cars. But if you buy EV, it’s free and you have the right to buy it.

So, there’s impetus and they’re encouraging their citizens to actively engage in the fight against climate change.

Yeah. And also, they also have privileged access to highways. And in a city like Shanghai, it’s a huge incentive again, right.

What are the different systems that we should be considering in terms of the building blocks that make a city sustainable?

Well, we always say cities are complex systems, human dominant, complex systems that consist of these natural ecological systems and economic systems and then the social systems. So, those are some of the subsystems within the urban system and I think we do need to combine efforts in all of these subsystems together in order to achieve more sustainable sort of cities. It needs to be a systems-based approach, for example, in order to adapt, there are so many systems approaches for different things, but just for adapting to climate change, for example, we do need systems approach in terms of integrating, for example, the nature-based solutions, technology-based solutions and socially based sort of solutions. And none of them on their own can actually do the job, but we really need to integrate all of them together. In order to really adapt our cities into climate change.

And what are the sort of key technological considerations that we should be more mindful of in considering again, sustainability in our cities?

I think for a city like Australia, we are already developed and we have one of the highest per capita greenhouse gas emissions, primarily because of the transportation system, everybody driving a car and things like that. And Australian cities are really interesting because we have been the envy of the world because we always topped a chart of livable cities in the world.

And how does some of those sorts of technological solutions play into us bringing those emissions down as Australians?

Yeah. For example, the ACT where I live, we have achieved 100 per cent renewable energy already. So, that means your electricity doesn’t really add in too much into greenhouse gas emission. So, I think every one of us, if we can really focus on our city council and then put some pressure to them saying, ‘When is our electricity going to be 100 per cent renewable?’, for example. That’s a big step towards reducing the impact of our cities and how you can look at transportation, how can we increase public transportation, how can we increase the electric vehicle share better than the traditional car? And then how do we do differently, in terms of the waste management, rather than just dumping them and then bury them in landfill? We probably can do a bit more recycling or composting.

So, you’re talking very much about urban solutions there, right? And what I’m hearing from you is that integration is what’s going to make the change. Can you explain that in a little bit more detail and maybe give us some very specific examples of why integration is so important, particularly in urban environments?

Climate change is such a complex issue and you need to involve almost all of the departments; that’s the institutional level of integration. But in terms of options integration, for example, like air conditioning, probably is a great way to reduce, to counter the heat stress and things like that, but air conditioning alone doesn’t really do the job. And then for many cities in developing countries, they probably cannot really afford it. So, if you combine, for example, some of the nature-based solutions that can reduce the need to turn on the air conditioning, for example. And also, you can also combine that with the social choices, in a country like in Japan, for example, even in the hottest summer, people used to have the shirts and then suit, right, and then a tie, and with that kind of an attire, you have to turn to air conditioner to 25 or even below. I had a colleague who would like to turn the temperature down to 20 and I’m freezing, so we always fight, you know, we used to fight. So, if you have that kind of cultural change saying, ‘Let’s relax a little bit’ and maybe we can be a bit more casual so that we can keep our air conditioning at 28’, for example. I think those things has to all combine together to come together to make it happen.

How much of an impact do those decisions have though? Is it a tangible impact when you’re talking about keeping it at 28 and not at 20. What sort of impacts are you talking about there?

I mean, if you and I, the two of us going back to that, it’s not big. But imagine if everybody does that, then that’s a huge cutback in terms of the energy requirement. And that reduces the need for the power plants to burn more fossil fuel to provide that sort of power.

Before we let you go, I want to ask you about your work with the Earth Commission, which focuses on defining safe and just scientific targets that ensure a stable planet. In a nutshell, can you really sort of again give us a sort of precis on your work with the Commission and what’s involved with that? What are you doing there?

So the Earth Commission is a group of social and natural scientists and they’re trying to look at, trying to define the boundary for the whole Earth in different domains. For example, we know already in climate change we shouldn’t really go beyond 1.5 degrees. Beyond that, it’s too much risk. And we are trying to define that, for example, land use, for nitrogen, phosphorus use, for the biodiversity ecosystem surveys, just to see what are some of the boundaries that humanity should be staying within so that we can ensure our world is safe. And also, just in terms of, to ensure that everybody has a fair share and everybody has some access to natural resources, things like that.

And my work within the Earth Commission is I’m leading a working group of international scholars again, trying to translate this planetary level concept of planetary boundaries or Earth system boundaries into cities and companies, so trying to define, in order for us as humanity to stay within this kind of planetary level, Earth system boundaries, what each and every business and city have to do, what is the fair share? How much you should do? You can be sort of assured that you are doing your fair share and enough in order for us, humanity, to stay within that sort of boundaries. So that’s what we’re trying to do right now.

And what are some of the sort of solutions and strategies that are coming out of that initial research?

So, our working group is trying to look at how do we actually translate this to scales. How do you translate the 1.5 degrees, for example, into cities? How much GHG you can actually fairly and safely emit?

Do you think some of the big guns who are heavily responsible for a lot of the rise in emissions and what we’re seeing happen with climate change around the world are taking responsibility?

Not enough of them are taking responsibility. And these kind of, we call the science-based targets setting, trying to connect the bigger picture boundaries into individual cities and companies with our science-based target setting. And we have evidence that actually shows science-based target setting actually works because many companies these days, they have responsibilities to disclose their environmental impact and then they set some sort of target to combat them. So, we are really actively trying to advocate each city and company, they should really set science-based target settings which is higher than the normal, other form of target setting. And only then each city and each, some of the biggest companies can do that. We can be, a bit rest assured, a little bit, to say, ‘Okay, we are indeed doing a bit better towards reaching our overall goal.’

I’m thinking about you sitting at a desk with your A4 bit of paper and the pixels and you know where that takes your mind in terms of how cities will look globally or how you would like them to look globally in terms of, generally, the impacts of climate change.

I mean, even within climate change, there are different visions, many, many of them. But I think, for example, like having renewable energy, 100 per cent renewable energy, that’s a must to begin with and then much reduced waste and renewable run, and public transportation, all of those sorts of things will be really important. And I think it’s also important that people need to be happy and healthy in a city that is livable that is really, really important, I think. And I remember about ten, no about 12 years ago, there was this magazine called Cosmos, asking me what cities should look like in 2030 at that time. So, I asked, had conversations with several of my colleagues and things like that, but didn’t get really strong sort of idea. And I asked my son, who’s sitting here, who was six years old at that time –

You’re looking at him in the audience right now –

Yes. And within four, five seconds he said, ‘By that time, we should all be having these flying cars and it is all powered by solar energy. And we should have technology so that even on a rainy day and evening, we still be able to do that using the solar power. And I guess that means battery’ and all those sorts of things. And that was really inspiring for me in a way, because that makes me feel really optimistic about things. And I know I don’t have other choice, rather than being optimistic. I mean, we cannot afford to be pessimistic and say, ‘Okay, what can we do?’ And then that in a way, drives me to try to find solutions, even smaller ones, and then try to make a difference on my day-to-day research, I mean, I’m a researcher, right? That’s all I can do.

Xuemei we’ve run out of time, but thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and wisdom today. Let’s give a round of applause for Xuemei Bai.

Thank you so much.

And if you want to follow the program online to stay abreast of the speakers that are here every week, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and visit the 100 Climate Conversations exhibition or join us for a live recording like this one. You can go to 100climateconversations.com and just search for 100 Climate Conversations in your pod catcher of choice.

This is a significant new project for the museum and the records of these conversations will form a new climate change archive preserved for future generations in the Powerhouse collection of over 500,000 objects that tell the stories of our time. It is particularly important to First Nations peoples to preserve conversations like this, building on the oral histories and traditions of passing down our knowledges, sciences and innovations which we know allowed our Countries to thrive for tens of thousands of years.