5 Lessons on Building an Emissions-Free City | Heidi Sørensen | TED

Hello.

Let me start by showing you a construction site

in my home city of Oslo.

(Sounds of children playing)

Did you hear something unusual?

Indeed, the noise.

The noise you hear was from the kindergarten nearby,

not from the machine noise.

The machines were electric,

and so were the trucks that transport materials to and from the site.

As head of the climate agency in Oslo,

the Klosterenga construction site is a climate measure

I'm really excited about.

The workers here are opening a stream

that has been confined in pipelines for more than 120 years.

And as climate changes in Oslo,

we are likely to experience more heavy rain.

So we need to improve our storm water runoff system,

and opening creeks and rivers

will help the city to become more resilient

and avoid flooding,

as well as creating nicer areas

and contributing to biodiversity in the city.

Klosterenga is close to being a zero-emission construction site

run by the city of Oslo.

And running zero-emission sites is just one example of the Oslo climate strategy.

This is how downtown of Oslo looked when I moved to Oslo in 1989.

This is the same area today.

Oslo's climate measures have given the city cleaner air, less noise,

safer and more human-centered streets.

Some of the measures were controversial when first introduced,

but now a majority of the population thinks --

even those who are not that concerned about climate change --

think that we are creating a better city.

For too long,

discussions about climate change have been about sacrifice.

I am here to tell you

that climate solutions actually make a better city

and a better quality of life for everyone.

This is only the first of five lessons we have learned

on our journey to become an emission-free city.

And I think these lessons can be applied almost anywhere.

So I like to share them.

So lesson number one,

confronting climate change is about creating better cities

and better quality of life for everyone.

Including those kids in the kindergarten,

that don't have to share their days with noisy excavators.

The second lesson is about being ambitious.

In 2015,

the city council set a target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions

by 95 percent by 2030

without purchasing any carbon offsets.

So aiming for real reductions.

Commitment to this goal

changed our mindset.

If we were going to reach this target,

every department had to get active,

figure out measures

and finding out how to implement them.

So second lesson, be ambitious.

A target measured in years, not decades,

provides no excuse for inaction.

In my experience,

the key challenges of achieving climate targets

is that the division of responsibility we see on global,

national and local levels.

In the city, the same is true.

There are differences inside the administration,

between departments

and between agency,

which each have their own targets

and own responsibility unrelated to climate,

and their own budget to stick to.

This makes it very difficult to coordinate climate measures

which often cross sectoral boundaries.

Our a solution to this fragmentation

was this document:

the Oslo Climate Budget,

which we put forward for the first time in 2016.

The first climate budget, as far as we know.

A climate budget is a governance tool.

It structures and organizes how we can get from climate target policies and words

to action and results.

It also makes all parts of the administration in Oslo

a stakeholder to the climate goals.

Our climate budget,

which is measured in tons of CO2 emissions,

is fully integrated in the municipal budget.

And like the financial budget,

the climate budget is the responsibility of the deputy mayor of finance.

It presents the expected emission reduction

from the adopted climate measures.

And it clearly states what has to be done

by whom, when,

and, where relevant, at what necessary budgetary cost.

Let me give you one example.

In 2022,

the city council decided to invest in a carbon capture and storage facility

at the largest waste incineration plant in Oslo.

This is the single biggest emission source in Oslo,

accounting for 17 percent of the total.

This is a measure that has been planned in the climate budget since 2017,

and it will be the department of business development and public ownership,

with its specific skills, that will have the responsibility for implementing it.

And the carbon will be captured from 2026 and onwards.

That's the third lesson learned.

A comprehensive government system is key to distribute responsibility

and to keep the responsible entity accountable.

An important point is that every agency will have to report

on the status of all their climate work

as a part of the ordinary budget process

three times a year.

So let me go back to construction.

Three years ago,

we broke ground on the piloting

of the world’s first zero-emission construction site.

The agency of urban environment

was transforming a busy street

into a pedestrian zone in the city center of Oslo.

They were using powerful machineries to lift and break slabs of asphalt,

even though the machinery was so quiet

that the next door cafes and restaurants kept their front doors open.

Today, we have more than 30 such sites,

even though electric construction machinery

barely existed prior to this project.

This change has been made through procurement.

In 2017,

the city decided to use procurement

to drive markets for developing technologies

we needed to reach the climate goals.

Like in every city,

construction is a big emission source,

and in Oslo,

the municipality accounts for approximately 20 percent of everything

that is being built.

Our procurement framework awards companies

who can provide zero-emission services.

Since 2019,

all projects by the municipality have used this as a core tender criterium.

This is important for contractors

because it creates a predictable demand

for zero-emission solutions.

Other cities in Norway have started using the same kind of criteria.

And the result is that the availability of zero-emission machines

is increasing every year in Norway.

So fourth lesson,

never, ever underestimate how much you can change

by being a demanding customer.

When the key strength of markets is their adaptability

and when you play to that strength,

it is surprising how much you can change in a short time.

We plan to gradually introduce requirements

for zero emissions in all construction sites in the city of Oslo,

both private and public, by 2030.

In the last years, the city’s quality of air has improved significantly.

Two years ago, a columnist wrote

that the city smells so nice now in the summer.

The reasons are reduced traffic

and the dramatic rise in proportion of electric cars and buses.

Sometimes technology development exceeds our expectations.

Ten years ago, few would have forecast the numbers we see today:

82 percent of all new passenger cars

and 36 percent of new vans

have so far in 2022 been zero-emission.

And, I think, even better:

30 percent of new heavy vehicles have so far been biogas or electric.

This is very good news

because mobility is the biggest emission source in the city,

accounting for approximately 50 percent of our total emissions.

Transition to electric mobility has been supported by a wide range of policies.

These include national tax exemption,

a local investment in an effective network of charging points.

But procurement has played an important role here, too.

Everything the municipality buys

should be delivered by zero-emission transport.

This has been and still is a gradual process,

but if three providers can offer it,

zero emission becomes the minimum criteria in the procurement.

Everyone probably knows that Norway is an oil and gas-rich nation

and many might think

that this is the reason why we can invest in climate solutions in Oslo.

But the reality is that infrastructure for public transport,

walking and biking

[is] financed by a system of toll roads.

We have a toll ring in Oslo,

and to go into that zone,

a non-electrical vehicle has to pay a high price.

And that price will increase 40 percent

January 1, 2024.

This have not been [an] easy negotiation,

and taxes are always controversial.

But this is [an] important incentive to transition away from fossil fuels.

Sometimes technology development changes markets very rapidly.

Our climate budget had a goal of reaching zero-emission public transport by 2028.

Thanks to decreased costs and advanced technology,

we are now heading for reaching that goal five years away.

(Applause)

The city's tram and meters are already electric,

and nearly all the ferries are electric.

And by the end of 2023,

every bus in Oslo will be electric as well.

Bus drivers love this development

because an electric bus is more pleasant to drive,

and it creates no noise nor gases.

So fifth lesson learned,

don't underestimate how technology changes markets

and how fast these changes can happen

and how you can incentivize them

by using the right kind of policies.

Well, we still have a way to go.

Our latest climate budget analysis

shows that we are up for reaching a reduction

with the adaptable measures by 62 percent by 2030.

So we are doing well,

but we have to do more, and we need to develop,

for instance, we need to develop a system

for integrating indirect emissions.

emissions produced outside Oslo

that are related to the activities and life in the city.

But we are working on it.

Let me finish by telling you how I move around in the city.

I walk.

I haven't mentioned two core aspects of urban mobility yet,

walking and biking.

The city began, years ago,

to develop as a city for walkers and bikers.

And that's one of the things that I really love about the city.

Thinking of a city this way

is about thinking how you organize your everyday life,

where you can buy your groceries,

whether you can go to work,

whether your kids can use their bicycle to [go to] the sports activities.

This is about streets, it's about locations.

It is about safe cycling paths and shortcuts for walking.

And connecting it all to the rest of the city

via a clean public transport.

The latest Norwegian national survey

showed that 37 percent

of all daily trips in Oslo are done by walking.

So, despite our very long and cold winter,

we have become a city of walkers.

And increasingly,

if you walk past a construction site in Oslo,

you will hear no noise.

Of course, unless there is a kindergarten [nearby].

Thank you.

(Applause)