India’s cities are in crisis. They are clogged with traffic, choked with pollution, blighted by concrete flyovers, overcrowded, suffer from power and water shortages, are prone to flooding and can at times be almost unbearable to live in.

The plan to introduce ‘smart cities’ to India is intended to remedy many of these problems.

These smart cities will function effectively, however, only if many of the underlying issues are addressed.

From the crisis in farming and associated rural migration to energy concerns and an expanding population, the problems are immense and varied. But let us focus on just one issue here – transport.

Delhi recently introduced ‘odd-even’ licence plate traffic days (vehicles with certain registration number endings allowed to be on the road on alternate days) to try to cut down on traffic congestion and pollution.

Although this policy may bring some temporary relief, it will fail to solve the underlying problem because the model of social and economic ‘development’ being promoted is one that associates car ownership with progress and prosperity.

The greater the urban sprawl, the greater the benefits for the car industry and the real estate sector. As long as urban planning centres around motorised vehicles and warped notions of ‘development’ governed by powerful private-sector players, India’s cities will continue to sprawl ever outwards and be defined by traffic congestion and air and noise pollution.

And, as long as there is a headlong rush towards urbanisation, again, fuelled by corporate interests – not least global agribusiness – hundreds of millions will head for the cities and urban problems will mount.

Copenhagen’s 400km of cycle paths

India could do worse than look to somewhere like Denmark, which is a world leader in ‘green’ policies. For instance, over 20% of the nation’s energy already comes from renewable energy, and the aim is to reach 100% by 2050.

But you don’t have to read up on statistics to appreciate Denmark’s record in this area. Go to Copenhagen and you will see ‘green’ and ‘sustainable’ all around, not least in the city’s approach to urban transport. Copenhagen alone has around 400 km of cycle paths and about 40% of the capital’s population commute to work by bicycle.

Copenhagen is world famous for its cycling and has in recent years been voted the ‘best city for cyclists’ and the ‘world’s most liveable city’. The ‘liveability’ factor is due to many reasons, one of which stems from the emphasis placed on cycle transport.

But until the 1960s, Copenhagen’s history mirrored developments in many other Western cities – developments that are currently compounded many times over in Indian cities. It became increasingly difficult to ignore the traffic congestion and accidents and the growing traffic pollution and noise problems. As in today’s Bengaluru where older residents wonder what happened to their ‘garden city’, Copenhagen was no longer the city that most Danes knew and loved.

The growing environmental movement at the time and the rising cost of oil helped the cause of the bicycle. The 1970s and 1980s witnessed conflicts between bicycle and car interests in Danish cities, not least because the authorities sought to establish road networks that cut across the beautiful lakes which separated the older part of the city from the more recent suburbs.

This resulted in an urban transport solution that gave space to cars but perhaps more importantly to bicycles, pedestrians and public transport. Visit Copenhagen today and what is striking is the large amount of cyclists as well as the thoughtful planning that has facilitated an integrated system of bicycle lanes.

Copenhagen’s cycling revolution continues, and the world is watching

Throughout the world, there is now a desire to improve public health and combat climate change. As a result, Copenhagen’s renowned cycle-friendly policies are now serving as a template for some of the world’s most congested cities.

In Mexico City, for example, the authorities are devising a bicycle strategy and recognise that, unlike cars, even the poorest segment of the population can access a bicycle. In this respect alone, the bicycle is a democratic means of mobility.

However this type of transport is only truly democratic if spatial segregation is limited. Mexico City’s bicycle strategy attempts to address this issue through a comprehensive cycle path network, which aims to create mobility through areas that have been closed off due to previous planning strategies.

Cities designed for cars are also characterised by large distances and many obstacles which hamper movement both on foot and by bicycle. In some of the world’s metropolises, distances are so large that a well-developed cycle path network is insufficient to ensure mobility for all. In such cases this network has to be integrated with eco-friendly, bicycle friendly public transport.

To make cycling attractive, it is not enough just to created cycle lanes and make bicycles available to all (Copenhagen made 1,300 free bicycles available for cycling around the city centre; it now favours a ‘bike share’ programme). Interesting urban environments must be created. Long, monotonous stretches have to be broken down into smaller sections and offer appealing features at ground level.

In other words, city planners have to stop thinking like motorists and plan for the needs of cyclists and pedestrians, in terms of, for instance, better and more greenery and intersections that allow for the free flow of cyclists.

In Denmark, the newly opened Copenhagen-Albertslund route is the first of a planned network that will comprise 26 Cycle Super Highways, covering a total of 300 km. The network will increase the number of cycle lanes in Greater Copenhagen by 15% and is predicted to reduce public expenditure by €40.3 million annually thanks to improved health.

A total of 22 municipalities in the Greater Copenhagen area have all collaborated to build the new network of cycle routes. The project intends to expand, improve and link existing cycle lanes in Greater Copenhagen, as well as improving signage, so commuters can quickly identify the easiest route available.

Technologies don’t get any smarter than bicycles

Smart cities call for smart solutions in an age when carbon emissions and respect for the environment have come to the fore. And very often it is the low-energy, simpler forms of technology that can provide the answers. Writing in 1973, the philosopher and social commentator Ivan Illich stated the following:

“Every increase in motorized speed creates new demands on space and time. The use of the bicycle is self-limiting. It allows people to create a new relationship between their life-space and their life-time, between their territory and the pulse of their being, without destroying their inherited balance. The advantages of modern self-powered traffic are obvious, and ignored …

“Man on a bicycle can go three or four times faster than the pedestrian, but uses five times less energy in the process. He carries one gram of his weight over a kilometer of flat road at an expense of only 0.15 calories … Equipped with this tool, man outstrips the efficiency of not only all machines but all other animals as well … In contrast, the accelerating individual capsule [the car] enabled societies to engage in a ritual of progressively paralyzing speed.”

According to Illich, bicycles offer a cheap, sustainable and affordable means of transport for the poor:

“With his much lower salary, the Chinese acquires his durable bicycle in a fraction of the working hours an American devotes to the purchase of his obsolescent car. The cost of public utilities needed to facilitate bicycle traffic versus the price of an infrastructure tailored to high speeds is proportionately even less than the price differential of the vehicles used in the two systems.”

Much modern urban planning is car-centric. But where is the need for the car if work, school or healthcare facilities are close by? Less need for ugly flyovers or six lane highways that rip up communities in their path.

Getting from A to B would not require a race against the clock on the highway that cuts through a series of localities that are never to be visited, never to be regarded as anything but an inconvenience to be passed through en route to Big-Mac nirvana, multiplex overload or shopping-mall hedonism.

Instead, how about an enjoyable walk or cycle ride through an urban environment defined by ‘community’ rather than by the car and which is free from traffic pollution or noise, where the pedestrian is not regarded as an obstacle to be honked at with horn, where the cyclist is not a damned inconvenience to be driven off the road or where ‘neighbourhood’ has been stripped of its intimacy?

India is not Denmark, of course. Denmark is a small country with a low population. But as in Mexico City, with its huge population and urban problems, India could learn much from Denmark’s attitude towards the bicycle.

After all, smart cities call for smart thinking.

Colin Todhunter is an extensively published independent writer and former social policy researcher, based in the UK and India. You can support his work here.

This article was originally published on Colin’s website.

Sources: Certain information and data for this article was accessed via the ‘Official website of Denmark‘ (Ministry of Foreign Affairs).

Over the course of 2015, I became convinced we’re winning the GMO debate.

And paradoxically, what convinced me was the experience of facing off against pro-GMO lobbyists in person and in print.

What did they say to convince me? Here’s a quick guide.

1. Everyone hates Monsanto

In Europe at least, even the most die-hard promoters of GMOs refuse to defend Monsanto and claim to despise the company. Even Vivian Moses, chairman of the industry-funded pro-GMO information service Cropgen, writing today on how the “biotech industry is winning the war” on GMOs, concedes that

“Monsanto was cast as the prime villain for seeking to import GM soya into Europe … Certainly the industry remains unpopular in some quarters: Monsanto in particular is still seen by activist protesters as a large and visible target.”

So, the GMO enthusiasts say, we should forget about Monsanto and embrace ‘public good’ GMOs instead. The problem with that is in the real world it is Monsanto that is the dominant force in the marketplace.

In any case it makes little difference whether it’s Monsanto or a public research institution that owns the patent on a GMO. The profit motive rules either way and takes precedence over issues of public health, the environment, and scientific integrity.

Through intellectual property mechanisms, the public research institutions that develop GMOs effectively become indistinguishable in their behaviour from corporations. We are treated to the unedifying spectacle – already common – of scientists and academics acting as salespeople.

2. Don’t mention the GM crops we actually grow

Over 99% of all GMOs grown worldwide are engineered to survive being sprayed with herbicides or to express an insecticide. Opponents of GM crops often speak about the fact that these GM crops are failing under the weight of herbicide-resistant superweeds and Bt toxin-resistant pests.

They talk about the rapid decline of the monarch butterfly due to its main food plant being wiped out by the Roundup herbicide sprayed on GM crop fields. They point out that Roundup stands accused of causing birth defects and cancer in Argentine people and of being a ‘probable’ human carcinogen.

They even show the uninspiring vision of what’s in the GMO commercialization pipeline: GM crops that tolerate being sprayed with even more herbicides – and potentially more toxic ones at that.

They can talk about all these things. But it will be a one-sided conversation. Because in spite of the ubiquity of these GM crops in those countries that have adopted GMOs, GMO promoters don’t want to talk about them. At all.

3. Talk a lot about golden rice and gene editing

What GMO promoters do want to talk about is:

• GMO golden rice, which they say will save poor people from vitamin A deficiency, and
• Gene editing, which they say will save GM technology from its old problems of imprecision and unpredictability – problems that until now they have always sought to deny!

What do these two hopes for the GMO future have in common? Mostly that they are about future promise, not actual delivery. GMO golden rice has been beset by basic R&D problems and disappointing yields in field trials.

And gene editing has not so far proved the revolution in precision that has been claimed. The limited research that has been carried out shows numerous off-target effects.

In fact, public interest scientists say new GM techniques like gene editing give rise to GMOs that must be labeled under European law.

But GMO promoters insist that the products of gene editing must not be classified as GMOs. Their reasoning is not scientific. It is geared to ensuring that these products will dodge regulation and avoid being stigmatized in the marketplace.

The take-home lesson is that this technology is too fragile to survive the transparency that’s increasingly being demanded by consumers.

4. Don’t ask too many questions about golden rice or gene editing

When it’s pointed out that GM golden rice still isn’t ready to use despite swallowing tens of millions in research funding, and that experiments show gene editing isn’t yet precise or predictable, GMO promoters have no answers. They don’t reply with contradictory evidence. Neither do they admit they’re wrong. They merely say, “Research must continue.”

Meanwhile, the Philippines has gone a long way towards solving its vitamin A deficiency problem without GMOs. Undoubtedly the problem would be completely solved if a fraction of the funding wasted on trying to genetically engineer beta-carotene (vitamin A precursor) into rice had been spent on techniques that are already proving effective at combatting malnutrition.

And non-GM breeding continues to outstrip GM in supplying safe, nutritious, and high-performing crops that thrive in a wide variety of conditions. That’s despite the fact that GM keeps being pushed at the expense of approaches that we already know work!

5. Don’t mention two of the most prominent GMO lobbyists

GMO lobbyist and climate science denier Patrick Moore made history last year by getting caught on camera telling a journalist he’d be happy to drink a glass of Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide – and then running away when the journalist offered him a glass.

If you’re not impressed, you’re not alone. Since his refusal to walk the pro-GMO talk and his irresponsible promotion of a toxic herbicide as a beverage, other GMO promoters have started to view Moore as an embarrassment and a no-go topic for discussion.

Likewise with Kevin Folta, a pro-GMO scientist with a massive social media presence who made the fatal error of not telling the truth about his links to the industry. Folta retains a circle of vicious online defenders. But people who have attended public meetings where he has appeared tell us that he has lost credibility even among GMO supporters.

It looks as if these formerly high-profile pro-GMO spokespeople are now being airbrushed from history.

‘Forward-looking statements’ and broken promises

Our conclusion about the state of the GMO debate from studying the best arguments that the GMO lobby can muster is this. Insofar as reason and science are concerned, they’ve lost. All they have is golden rice and gene editing.

But they don’t even have those. Both have thus far failed to live up to their promises and are kept afloat largely by wishful thinking and ‘forward-looking statements’, as Monsanto likes to call them.

In countries like the UK that have pro-GMO governments, forward-looking whimsy, fuelled by the promise of profits from intellectual property rights on GMOs, may be enough to keep the research funding pipeline flowing for a few years. But that pipeline is running counter to the mainstream. The global rejection of GM foods is growing.

The US government was the first to embrace GMOs – but American consumers are rejecting them in droves. In 2014, non-GMO foods and beverages generated $200 billion in sales and the total global market for non-GMO products is predicted to almost double by 2019. And Campbell’s, the world’s largest soup company, has just announced that it will label GMO ingredients in its products in the interests of transparency.

The two countries other than the US that grow the most GMOs are facing a public health crisis. In Argentina, 30,000 doctors and health professionals have demanded a ban on glyphosate, the herbicide that over 80% of GM crops are grown with.

In Brazil, after the WHO’s classification of glyphosate as a ‘probable carcinogen’, the national cancer institute blamed GM crops for placing the country in the top ranking globally for pesticide consumption and called for a massive shift to agroecological farming.

Meanwhile, two-thirds of European countries, including all parts of the UK other than England, have rejected those GM crops already in the approvals pipeline.

GM Bt cotton in India and Pakistan is increasingly in meltdown. In the Philippines, a Supreme Court ruling has put a stop to GMO field trials and approvals. Since the Philippines is the country targeted for GM golden rice, one of the GMO lobby’s great hopes for the future now faces an extra obstacle.

The GMO food venture appears to be at death’s door – unless gene edited foods are exempted from labelling. If they are, these ‘hidden GMOs’ could lead to a collapse of consumer confidence in the food market as a whole.

Is the food industry willing to take a bullet for the GMO industry? Probably not – but citizens will have to make a lot of noise to ensure that this attempted deception doesn’t succeed.

So when it comes to Vivian Moses’s claim today that “Supermarket opposition has softened in the UK” and that “much of the European public has become bored with the issue”, it’s up to us to prove him wrong.

Claire Robinson is an editor at GMWatch.

Support: We at GMWatch are proud to have played a part in this debate, which – against massive odds – we and our allies across the world may be winning. If you like what we do, please support us with a donation. We appreciate your support.

Last November, the duly elected government of the United States of America rejected the Keystone XL oil pipeline – in response to an outcry by citizens across the country and protests by the communities along the pipeline’s route.

Now, TransCanada, the company behind the pipeline, is suing for $15 billion in sunk costs and lost future profits.

As crazy as this sounds, it’s because corporations can use trade agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to sue governments for introducing rules that protect citizens’ health, rights or the environment.

The controversial Keystone XL pipeline, which would have carried climate-killing tar sands oil from Canada, was rejected by US President Barack Obama in November 2015.

The pipeline would have opened up global markets to exports of tar sands oil – one of the world’s dirtiest fuels. Blocking the pipeline was a major victory for the climate movement, putting the interests of people ahead of profits.

TransCanada’s Keystone XL permit was rejected on the basis that construction of the pipeline was not in the national interest of the United States and contributed to climate change. Instead of honoring President Obama’s reasoned decision, TransCanada is turning to secretive trade tribunals in an attempt to force American citizens to pay compensation.

Trade rules undermining environmental protection

Trade and investments agreements are no longer just about import tariffs, but about a range of issues that determine the food we eat, the energy we use and the ability of our governments to regulate in the public interest.

Current trade rules empower corporations like TransCanada to challenge legitimate environmental protections in secret tribunals. A mechanism called Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) that is included in most trade deals enables companies to sue governments when they feel their profits are threatened by new regulation.

TransCanada says that Obama’s decision to reject the pipeline was “arbitrary and unjustified”, and has initiated one of the largest trade appeals against the US on this basis, describing it as “a symbolic gesture based on speculation about the perceptions of the international community regarding the Administration’s leadership on climate change and the President’s assertion of unprecedented, independent powers.”

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case. There are over 600 such ISDS cases worldwide, with the majority in the global south. For example, a simple bilateral trade agreement was the basis of a cigarette company’s attempt to sue the government of Uruguay for an anti-smoking campaign. And the Ethyl corporation gained the reversal of Canada’s ban on the toxic chemical MMT.

The fact that a private international tribunal composed of unelected corporate lawyers can force governments to pay billions of dollars for protecting the environment is an example of the dangerous powers assumed by big business through trade deals.

And we could see even more of these lawsuits in the future. New trade deals like the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) or the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), will greatly expand this system. These deals have been called ‘NAFTA on Steroids‘.

Growing movement for change

The silver lining may be that the Keystone XL pipeline becomes a rallying point for a growing global movement of grassroots communities, activists and politicians who are gravely concerned about the implications of these unjust trade deals.

A Europe wide anti-TTIP protest on 15th October saw tens of thousands on the streets of Brussels, London and Amsterdam and a stunning 250,000 people at a demonstration in Berlin.

In Uruguay, after months of intense public pressure against a similar Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) – including a general strike on the issue – the President listened to public opinion and left the US-led trade agreement last September.

TransCanada has made a big mistake by going after an oil pipeline that’s already synonymous with corporate greed, and disregard for the environment and communities. They’re putting these toxic trade agreements out into the spotlight of attention. And when people get a good look at them, the more they oppose these corporate power grabs.

Bad trade deals are a ticking time bomb for climate action and must be stopped. Trade and investment policy can no longer continue to undermine a sustainable future.

People power defeated the dirty tar sands oil pipeline, and will also defeat these unfair trade deals.

Sam Cossar-Gilbert is economic justice and resisting neoliberalism program coordinator at Friends of the Earth International. He tweets @samcossar

A new study says that Russia and the countries of Central Asia could become a highly energy-competitive region by getting all their electricity from renewable sources within the next 15 years.

So far, most of the region’s governments appear not to have found the will to realise this huge potential.

But researchers at Lappeenranta University of Technology in Finland calculate that the cost of electricity produced entirely from renewables would be half the price of modern nuclear technology and fossil-fuel burning if carbon capture and storage (CCS) had to be used.

This would make all the countries more competitive by cutting their costs, but would require the building of a super-grid to allow countries to share the benefits of a range of renewable energy sources.

The geographical area of the research – which excludes transport and heating – covers much of the northern hemisphere. Many of the countries in the area rely on the production and use of fossil fuels and nuclear power.

As well as Russia, the researched area includes Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, as well as the Caucasus and Pamir regions including Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

‘Power to gas’ makes 100% renewable power possible

The modelled energy system is based on wind, hydropower, solar, biomass and some geothermal energy. Wind amounts to about 60% of the production, while solar, biomass and hydropower make up most of the rest.

The total installed capacity of renewable energy in the system in 2030 would be about 550GW (gigawatts). Slightly more than half of this would be wind energy, and one-fifth would be solar. The rest would be composed of hydro and biomass, supported with power-to-gas, pumped hydro storage, and batteries.

Currently, the total capacity is 388GW, of which wind and solar account for only 1.5GW. The current system also has neither power-to-gas capacity nor storage batteries. One of the key insights of the research is that energy sectors’ integration lowers the cost of electricity by 20% for Russia and Central Asia.

When moving to a renewable energy system, for example, natural gas is replaced with ‘power-to-gas’ – using gases such as hydrogen, ammonia and synthetic methane, made using renewable electricity surplus to immediate power needs, to generate power on demand. Because of losses in converting power into gas, and back again, this increases the overall need for primary renewable energy.

The more renewable capacity is built, the more it can be used for different sectors: heating, transport and industry. This flexibility of the system reduces the need for storage and lowers the cost of energy.

“We think that this is the first-ever 100% renewable energy system modelling for Russia and Central Asia”, says Professor Christian Breyer, co-author of the study. “It demonstrates that the region can become one of the most energy-competitive regions in the world.”

The study is one of a number completed to see how various regions of the world can switch to renewables. All show that the barrier to progress is political will, and not a lack of affordable technology.

Although Central Asia rated hardly a mention at the Paris climate talks last month, effects of warming are already evident in the region, and governments are waking up to the dangers of climate change and the benefits of renewables.

Glacier losses are already significant, and scientists calculate that half of them would disappear with a temperature increase to 2°C above pre-industrial levels. There are fears that this would increase tensions between governments over shared water resources used for irrigation and human consumption.

Greening the Central Asian economy

Especially vulnerable are the low-income and mountainous countries of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, which rely heavily on hydropower for their electricity. Kyrgyzstan has such low carbon emissions that it barely registers, but it is looking at ways of cutting its emissions on a per capita basis as an example to the rest of the world.

Even oil-rich Kazakhstan signed up to the Paris Agreement and set targets for emission cuts. It is one of the world’s biggest emitters per unit of GDP, but has adopted a national plan to go for a green economy, with a fledgling carbon emissions trading scheme.

Despite these encouraging signs, most of the countries of the region suffer from lack of transparency in government and little pressure from the environment groups that are often helpful in fostering international co-operation.

Most governments have formally adopted policies supporting renewable energy generation, including feed-in tariffs, but high fossil fuel subsidies, low electricity prices and comparatively high technology costs still hinder the extensive deployment of renewable energy.

The region’s share in electricity generation (excluding large hydropower) remains very low. It varies from less than 1% in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to about 3% in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

Kazakhstan, which is expected to become the biggest renewable energy player in the region, is taking the first steps towards exploitation of its substantial wind energy potential, while Uzbekistan is building the first on-grid photovoltaic park in the region, with support from the Asian Development Bank. 

Paul Brown writes for Climate News Network.