World's 5 Greenest Cities
22:23
Green City No. 5
Malmö, Sweden
Malmö is inhabited with 280,000 people, made it the third largest city in Sweden. The city is located in Skåne county in the south and is made of canals, beaches, parks, harbors and blocks that still keeping the medieval nuance. Yet not the medieval aura that made it pass to be on the list.
But the city's creative idea in innovating, using natural source that can be renewed and becoming the green city pioneer.
Sweden is the pioneer of green electricity solution--most of the electricity energy of the country came from nuclear and water. City like Malmö also contributed in greening Sweden with plan of lessing carbon dioxide emission to 25% between 2008 and 2012, exceeding the 5% target settled by Kyoto Protocol.
To achieve this target, complexes in entire Malmö had been renovated into environment-friendly areas, specially in the west harbor, Sege Park and Augustenborg.
West harbor, that used to be ship docks and now with rapid inhabitants, is run 100% by solar, wind, water and biofuel energy that processed from organic waste. Buildings here are also built from environment-friendly materials and designed to be energy-efficient. The roads are easy to be followed by pedestrians and bikers--30% of street users chose to travel with bike.
Beside that, the restoration of Sege Park, and other environment-friendly transformation, will also stock the area with green sources, including photovoltaic (solar electricity), wind energy and biofuels.
Augustenborg, a district that had been green for the last decades, famous with green roofing--roof layered with garden to lessen energy waste and increase the insulation and vegetation in the urban area. Augustenborg also has free trams, the world's first emission, and more than a dozen recycling center that process around 70% of wasted trash material.
Green City No. 4
Copenhagen, Denmark
About 1,7 million people who live in Copenhagen is famous because they choose to bike or using trains instead of cars, but green transportation is only one of the plans of the environment-friendly city. In 2006, Copenhagen won Europe's environmental award for the clean aqueduct and its innovation in environment plan. What makes the reputation? Water and windmills.
The city is adored for its effort for the last ten years in keeping the cleanness and the save harbors. The government also participate in using water quality warning system to monitor the level of pollution.
Beside that, Copenhagen also famous with its windmills. Over 5,600 windmills support 10% of Denmark's energy supply; and in 2001, Copenhagen opened the biggest beachfront windmill park in the world. The park can support 32,000 house units in the city, about 3% of its electricity needs.
Green City No. 3
Portland, Oregon, USA
Portland is located by the river Willamette in southwestern Pacific and inhabited with more than 500,000 people. The city had been model of environment-friendly lifestyle for the last few decades, with mixing the urban component with open spaces.
The green of the city is not anything new. Since the 'report for Portland Park Corporation' in the year 1903, Portland had become inspiration for cities in entire USA and the world to include green areal in their city planning. Thirty years ago, Portland kept on the first list by renovating six-lanes freeway to be a waterfront park. Now Portland has 92,000 ares of green spaces, including 119 km of bicycle, hills, and running tracks, and had legalize borders for city developing to save around 25 million ares of woods and farm fields.
Portland is the first city in USA that legalize plan of lessing glasshouse gas emission and also one of the pioneers of 'cities for climate protection campaign'. The city got the top position in USA and world for a few years lately and has 50 buildings that reach (or even exceed) the environment-friendly standard settled by USA's Green Building Corporation, along with the mixing of areas for pedestrians and bikers--around 25% of street users bike to their workplaces.
For the future, Portland has an ambitious energy target. For 2010, the city plans to supply 100% energy from natural sources that can be renewed, including innovative steps like using parking meters with solar energy.
Green City No. 2
Vancouver, Canada
Vancouver is a coastal city, inhabited with 560,000 people and also said to be the most comfortable city to live in by the Economist magazine. Indeed, the city is not only comfortable to live in but also being a reference of Canada as the renewed natural resource user. Vancouver leads in the developed technology using. Vancouver has 100 years-plan to live in green and clean. The city also leads in the use of electricity from water energy, which now supplies 90% of the total energy.
Other than that, Vancouver also implements the developed technology; garbage storage with solar energy can now found in the entire city, in size the same of regular garbage storage, but can keep it five times larger the amount of garbage (which makes the city needs less garbage trucks with emission on the streets.)
Green City No. 1
Reykjavík, Iceland
Reykjavík is a small city on the list, with only 115,000 souls living here from overall 300,000 souls in the whole Iceland. But its result to the world worth thumbs up. Iceland plans to free its dependent to fossil fuel in 2050 to become a hydrogen economy. Now, Reykjavík (and the whole Iceland) gets the energy for heat, hot water and electricity all from water energy and geothermal source--which both can be renewed and free from glasshouse gas emission. Some vehicles also use hydrogen, including three city buses.
by courtesy of Uncle Pat.
0 comments