Planetary stewardship in an urbanizing world: beyond city limits.
Cities are rapidly increasing in importance as a major factor shaping the Earth system, and therefore, must take corresponding responsibility. With currently over half the world's population, cities are supported by resources originating from primarily rural regions often located around the world far distant from the urban loci of use. The sustainability of a city can no longer be considered in isolation from the sustainability of human and natural resources it uses from proximal or distant regions, or the combined resource use and impacts of cities globally. The world's multiple and complex environmental and social challenges require interconnected solutions and coordinated governance approaches to planetary stewardship. We suggest that a key component of planetary stewardship is a global system of cities that develop sustainable processes and policies in concert with its non-urban areas. The potential for cities to cooperate as a system and with rural connectivity could increase their capacity to effect change and foster stewardship at the planetary scale and also increase their resource security.
International Geosphere Biosphere Programme, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, Sweden. sybil.seitzinger@igbp.kva.se
Sybil P
SP
Seitzinger
Uno
U
Svedin
Carole L
CL
Crumley
Will
W
Steffen
Saiful Arif
SA
Abdullah
Christine
C
Alfsen
Wendy J
WJ
Broadgate
Frank
F
Biermann
Ninad R
NR
Bondre
John A
JA
Dearing
Lisa
L
Deutsch
Shobhakar
S
Dhakal
Thomas
T
Elmqvist
Neda
N
Farahbakhshazad
Owen
O
Gaffney
Helmut
H
Haberl
Sandra
S
Lavorel
Cheikh
C
Mbow
Anthony J
AJ
McMichael
Joao M F
JM
Demorais
Per
P
Olsson
Patricia Fernanda
PF
Pinho
Karen C
KC
Seto
Paul
P
Sinclair
Mark
M
Stafford Smith
Lorraine
L
Sugar
D016083:Planets; D014507:Urbanization