At an infrastructure level, the link is obvious.
High-quality green infrastructure typically
involves up-front costs that wealthier governments
can better afford. Conversely, poorer
cities must simultaneously grapple with a wider
range of development issues, from unemployment
levels to growing informal settlements,
which can easily distract from a green agenda.
But a further finding is that the link between
GDP and the policy indicators within the index
(which track environmental action plans and
public participation in green policy, among
other things) is statistically even stronger. In
other words, wealthier cities are not only able to
afford more sustainable infrastructure, they are
also setting more ambitious policy goals than
their less wealthy peers. To give but one example,
two of the three cities that lack even a basic
environmental plan are also two of the three
poorest.
“Money is extremely important,” says Pedro
Ballesteros Torres, principal administrator at the
European Commission’s Directorate-General for
Energy and Transport and in charge of the
Covenant of Mayors. “Normally, the most
advanced cities in environmental terms in
Europe are also the richest. When you have a
good infrastructure, it is easier to implement
things.”
It need not be this way. As the city portraits
later in this report show, Berlin, with only a midlevel
GDP per capita, has a score that benefits
from advanced policy in various areas, and Warsaw,
while in the bottom half of the wealth
table, is ranked in joint-fifth place in the environmental
governance category. Moreover, while
costs may constrain certain policy options, they
do not do so in general. “Money is in some ways
very difficult,” admits Outi Väkevä, part of
Helsinki’s Air Protection Group, “but it is possible
to do quite a lot without having to pay more.”
She notes that energy efficiency, for example,
can save money and cut emissions. Similarly,
Guttorm Grundt, Environment Coordinator in
Oslo’s Department of Transport, Environment
and Business, agrees that Oslo’s relative wealth
helps, but notes that measures such as eco-certification
are not expensive, and that the city’s
own efforts to lead by example in increasing the
efficiency of buildings and vehicles “is saving us
money, together with reducing consumption
and waste.” Mr Grundt adds that the link may be
indirect. A relatively wealthy place like Oslo does
not have certain policy concerns – there are no
slums for example – which poorer cities need to
address, drawing on time and resources which
richer peers might use elsewhere.