[Cities 1.5 main theme music]
00:00:03 David
I'm David Miller and you're listening to Cities 1.5, a podcast by University of Toronto Press, produced in association with The Journal of City Climate Policy and Economy and C40 Cities, a global network of nearly 100 of the worlds megacities, committed to accelerating climate action. C40's mission is to halve the emissions of its member cities within a decade, while improving equity, building resilience, and creating the conditions for everyone, everywhere to thrive. Join me as I connect with leading mayors, experts, policymakers, and youth leaders who are helping ensure a 1.5 degree world by leading city-based climate action.
Each week, we delve into the necessary transformative solutions to today's most pressing climate challenges. The fight for an equitable and resilient world is closer than you think. [Cities 1.5 main theme music fades out]
[urgent music] The impacts of the climate crisis are widespread, but the unfair reality is that the burden of climate impacts are felt disproportionately by vulnerable groups who have contributed the least to the problem. The richest 10% of the global population account for up to 50% of cumulative greenhouse gas emissions, while the poorest half of the population are responsible for just 7% of global emissions. Despite being the least responsible for climate change, marginalized communities are more likely to breathe polluted air, suffer related health impacts, and live in areas more vulnerable to extreme weather, flooding, and sea level rise.
According to Oxfam, people in low- and lower middle-income countries are around five times more likely than people in high income countries to be displaced by sudden extreme weather. It's clear that inequality is driving climate change and that climate change is driving inequality. How can we break this destructive cycle? [urgent music fades out]
[upbeat, energetic music] One solution is to ensure that equity and inclusivity are at the heart of climate action. C40's Inclusive Climate Action Program is doing just that, by supporting cities around the world to design and deliver climate policy, fairly and equitably. I spoke with my colleague, Jazmin Burgess, the Deputy Director of Inclusive Climate Action at C40, to hear directly from her on this critical issue. [upbeat, energetic music fades out]
Can you explain what inclusive climate action means, and why it's necessary to think about taking actions to address climate change through the lens of inequality?
00:03:24 Jazmin Burgess
So, inclusive climate action is really about making sure that everyone benefits from climate action, so that can be people who are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, or it could also be ensuring that action is planned in a way that ensures that people aren't negatively impacted by climate action, so there's benefits felt by all. So, that's sort of the fundamental root of inclusive climate action.
00:03:46 David
If you take the philosophy that climate action should be inclusive, does it mean anything for how a city, for example, might develop a climate plan?
00:03:56 Jazmin Burgess
Yeah, absolutely. So, it means, very much, thinking about putting people at the heart of how you think about climate action. So, if you're a city and you wanted to pursue a mitigation policy, for example, looking at maybe how you're going to roll out renewable energy, you look at the steps you need to take like, “Who are the stakeholders that are involved?” “Who is going to be affected by the action that you want to take?” “Who might lose out?” and, “What are the steps you can take as you're designing policies and programs to address those issues?”
00:04:25 David
The question, after that, is how do you bring the very people who might be impacted to the table to help design the policies in the first place?
00:04:33 Jazmin Burgess
[gentle music] The climate crisis is unfair, and often those who are impacted most are often the ones that either are least responsible or often the most outside of the political or civic system, and therefore more effort needs to be placed in engaging them. You know, as a city, you need to think about, “Are there new partners you can work with? For example, is it engaging with new community groups that could reach people who are most affected?” So, say you want to look at funding and resilience in the city and you realize the most affected are in hard-to-reach locations or in informal housing, how do you take those steps that are needed to really integrate them into the system? And that, often, is not as simple as the usual of, “You know, let's just do an online consultation and that's enough in terms of reaching people.” [gentle music fades out]
00:05:20 David
Any final thoughts on inclusive climate action, why we need to lead on it, what cities are doing from the perspective of your global perch at C40?
00:05:31 Jazmin Burgess
The point you make about, “Why is it important to think about inclusive climate action, for cities to do that?” I think there are so many reasons. Like, I think, often people think, “Oh, it's the right thing to do because it's, you know, the moral thing,” you know, it has a social economic benefit. But, there's also many other reasons why, for cities, inclusive climate action makes sense. So, there's the very obvious one that if you think about climate action and approach it in an equitable way, then you have policies and programs that benefit everyone in a city, and that means that more people in the city are engaged in the climate transition and what's happening, which, in turn, gives off a bigger mandate for a mayor to act because they're bringing the whole of the city with them.
There's also just the very basic issue that, if you use processes such as better consultation and better engagement of communities and of residents, you often get stronger policies. And then, the other thing I would just also say is that there's been plenty of evidence that, when you don't think about people and you don't include them, you can often hit roadblocks halfway through your policy implementation so, if a city is to think about some of this at the start and really put it at the beginning then, actually, there's more chance of being successful in implementing the climate action, having higher ambition, be it, you know, higher emissions reduction because you brought the city with you, and you've brought residents with you. There's many reasons, but it spans beyond just the social economic benefits that exist.
00:06:47 David
It's the right thing to do. It's effective. Your point about including people and actually ensuring that their great ideas can be heard is really powerful because not only is it the right thing to do, you might end up having a much more robust and better program if people have a chance to speak.
00:07:05 Jazmin Burgess
[upbeat, energetic music] It's clear that cities are definitely experimenting with this approach, far more than I think many others are, but also, I think because often the city government is closer to the people, they understand the need to think about action in a more inclusive way, and there's a lot that can be learned from that interaction, making inclusive climate action spread further. [upbeat, energetic music continues]
00:07:30 David
Thanks to Jazmin, now we have a definition and a framework for exactly what inclusive climate action is. But how can cities go about implementing it? [upbeat, energetic music fades out]
[light, rhythmic music] Let's first go to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where the city has launched Recicla Comunidades, or Community Recycling Program, which has introduced recycling infrastructure in low-income settlements across the city. This initiative was developed in collaboration with the people it was designed for, ensuring that vulnerable groups in the city get to share the benefits.
We'll hear directly from the Sustainability and Resilience Manager, Pedro Rodrigo Rolim, who is leading this equitable climate solution.
Next, I spoke with Leilani Farha, Director of The Shift, an organization committed to changing the narrative around housing rights. Safe, secure, and affordable housing should be available to everyone, especially those most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. We’ll hear from Leilani about why housing is a human right, how this issue is inextricably linked to climate change, and how cities can address it. So, let's dive in.
In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, nearly 20% of the city's population live in favelas, or informal settlements, where residents are more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. In addressing how they manage waste and recycling in these communities, the city of Rio has implemented an inclusive program which includes residents in creating its solution.
Pedro Rodrigo Rolim is the Manager of Sustainability and Resilience for the city of Rio. He's currently leading the Recicla Comunidades, or community recycling, which is a part of the Favelas With Dignity program. The impact of this project is twofold: one, they're keeping these neighbourhoods cleaner and greener by ensuring recyclable waste is diverted rather than being disposed of in open dump sites, and two, these recyclables are turned into profitable income for informal workers living in the neighbourhood.
This program was built from the bottom up to ensure that it addressed real concerns held by the residents it was designed to support, and it's an example of the kinds of inclusive climate actions that can be accomplished when there is trust built between a city government and its residents. I reached Pedro for a remote interview at his office in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on January 26th, 2023.
Pedro, first of all, welcome.
00:10:27 Pedro Rodrigo Rolim
Thank you, David. Thanks for having me.
00:10:29 David
Rio is paying special attention to the issues of inequality and trying to build a city for all. One of the programs you're working on, which is very interesting in connecting climate remedies with remedies for inequality, is the Recicla Comunidades, Community Recycling Program. Can you talk about the program and what it's trying to do?
00:10:53 Pedro Rodrigo Rolim
This is a very interesting program. It is managed by the Community Action Department, and, in fact, it's a very simple one. We manage many structural points for collecting recyclables in the favelas, so we have one community with one point, and we have co-operatives working on them, and all the revenues that are made for the collectors, it's made through a credit card, where they can use that in local stores like groceries and small markets. So, it's an important program because not only do we provide some quality to this job, people that are living in the communities—in these poor communities. Sometimes, they don't have these collection points near their houses, and then, we provide this point. We pay them immediately and then they can use that in the local businesses, in the community. We ensure that the money that they owe is being well spent and, at the same time, in all communities that we have all these points, we can see all the community, it is cleaner because they are collecting all the garbage that they see, all the plastic, all the papers, and so they are taking all these materials from the streets, from the rivers, and bringing them to these Recicla Comunidades points. And so, there's a lot of side positive effects in this program.
00:12:27 David
So, the program helps people reduce the amount of waste, including plastic waste, through a payment scheme which then benefits the community, as well, by supporting local business. How do people in the community know about the program? And how does the city work on community engagement to ensure that people see this economic opportunity for themselves and for local businesses?
00:12:55 Pedro Rodrigo Rolim
[driving music] Yeah. Well, normally all these programs, they come together with many other initiatives. We kind of make an entrance in the community, offering a lot of opportunities. So, we bring some programs, considering environmental education. So, we create a movement in the community, and we warn them, “Okay, the City Hall is here. Is this the time where we can change information, where we can hear you?” We can hear many complaints about what is not working so well. Sometimes, they simply need to talk with us, to say something, that it's not working about any issue—about the traffic, about the transportation—and so, we are there, and we hear a lot of what they are saying, and we say, “Okay, for some problems, we have a solution right here. We can offer you this program.” [driving music fades out]
00:13:47 David
Pedro, when did the program start? And can you give some details about number of recycling points, those kinds of things?
00:13:55 Pedro Rodrigo Rolim
Yeah, in fact, these programs will be launched in 10 communities. For this year, we are intending to have more 10, so we will double the number of communities, and we intend to have at least more 200, in fact, because this program is really replicable.
00:14:29 David
So, this program is part of a bigger effort to ensure that people who live in the favelas are actually engaged with the city and have an opportunity to speak to people, and the city listens and tries to meet their needs.
00:14:45 Pedro Rodrigo Rolim
We create a space of listening there and, when we go there, and we have many, many, many tents they are building, we create this moment of communication. It's a big opportunity for them and for us to hear what is not working well.
00:15:02 David
And, from your perspective, why is it important that people living in these communities be engaged on issues like climate change? And what do you think other cities can learn from Rio’s experiences in engaging people through an idea of equity and inclusivity?
00:15:25 Pedro Rodrigo Rolim
Well, I believe that the most important here, is that they feel that they are part of the solution. Sometimes, we have many stigmatized images of their communities, and the population that lives there, they know that, and they try to make this effort to change this image that the city has—the formal city because they are, in fact, part of the city—about them, and so it's very important when we bring this kind of program, in fact, we saw there an opportunity to improve the environmental service that they provide to us. [light, upbeat music] So, this change of image of how we treat or how we bring the programs to the communities is very important.
[urgent music] You know, “Okay, now you are part of the solution, and we must work together,” and they're quite receptive because, when I began to work with climate change 10 years ago, we still had that time to reinforce the importance of fighting climate change, but now the climate change, in fact, is already here. [urgent music fades out] And so, in the communities, since they are already the most affected—they already know that they are suffering from the climate change, so—this is important because they can say, “Okay, I know that this is happening and I can make my part,” and I believe that the role of the City Hall is to fulfill those needs and provide them a better service or provide them some quality jobs, decent jobs, and they are quite aware of that.
00:17:09 David
So, we've mentioned the participation of people in the solution, which I found very powerful, that they know they're part of the solution. You've also been very clear that it's the goal of the Rio government to ensure that people have good jobs out of these kinds of programs, and this particular recycling program, there's a direct income stream for people. Can you speak a little bit about people's access to adequate housing and building resilience, from that perspective, in low-income communities in Rio, because I would assume there is a connection there, as well, between the impacts of climate change and people’s income and the type of housing they're living in and their ability to pursue a good life?
00:17:55 Pedro Rodrigo Rolim
Well, this is a very important issue and, in fact, when I talked about these many programs that we bring together through the communities, we also had a program of providing some constructive benefits in the houses. So, we can provide some ceiling and better roofs. When we talk about climate change here we talk about zoning, and this is a very important point that, when we built our climate action plan, we saw and we had all the maps and all the areas affected by some climate hazards, and there's a lot of heat islands that we have and the rise of sea level. [gentle music] So, there's a lot of areas that now we know that we must act in there. And so, we are now rejecting some specific programs to each of these areas, initiated by the heat islands, you know, because normally, we live in a very hot city. But this is going to be worse. In fact, in the next years, we also have to work in the urban space to create a better environment and a better landscape to everyone. [gentle music fades out]
00:19:03 David
It's interesting that the urban heat island effect is apparent in the favelas, and that the city can have remedies to improve the quality of housing to help people.
[light, rhythmic music] Your perspective on inequality, addressing inequality, and including the people in the decisions that are affecting their live, this has been fascinating. The time has flown by. I want to thank you for being with us today on Cities 1.5. But, more importantly, thank you for your ongoing work, combining social justice, equity, and inclusion with climate change. You've been really clear about why that's the right approach, and I think people are going to learn terrific lessons from what you're doing in Rio.
00:19:46 Pedro Rodrigo Rolim
Thank you so much.
00:19:54 David
[light, rhythmic music continues] As extreme weather events increase in both frequency and severity, vulnerable groups bear the heaviest burden of these impacts, especially those who lack access to adequate housing. Increasingly, housing is valued as a source of profit and a vehicle for investment, as opposed to a place where people can live safely, comfortably, and with dignity.
As the former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing, and now as the director of The Shift, Leilani Farha has worked tirelessly on these issues to promote the narrative that housing is a human right and to advise policymakers on how to holistically and equitably address the housing crisis. I reached Leilani for a remote interview in Ottawa, Canada, on January 25th, 2023. [light, rhythmic music fades out]
Leilani, welcome to Cities, 1.5.
00:21:00 Leilani Farha
Thanks so much, David. It's a pleasure to be here.
00:21:02 David
Now you're joining us from Ottawa. I'm in Toronto, and I understand we have a common snowstorm as we speak.
00:21:10 Leilani Farha
And many, many grey skies.
00:21:12 David
Well, hopefully, we can move from the grey and shine light on some of these issues. I really wanted to start by just asking you about the housing issue in general, so maybe the way to get into that is if you could talk a little bit about The Shift.
00:21:30 Leilani Farha
So, at The Shift, we kind of envision a different world, a world where everyone has affordable, secure, dignified, and environmentally-sustainable housing, and we have that vision because people are living in pretty stark circumstances across the planet right now that don't match that vision, right? So, we see, everywhere we go, people living in homelessness, everywhere we go, people living in really substandard housing and informal settlements, even in the north, people living in tent encampments in your city right there in Toronto.
Therefore, existing frameworks, existing ideologies aren't working, and not only are they not working, they're creating this stuff. That's our perspective. And so, what we want to do is we want to use what we are convinced is the right and better framework that will create a different world, and that framework is the human rights framework, a framework that's really based in the idea of equality and diversity and dignity. So, that's what we're on about at The Shift. We're trying to, literally, shift ideologies and shift realities on the ground.
00:22:48 David
Well, I think being in Canada at this precise moment when there is a big storm going on in eastern Canada, at least, thinking about people living on our streets in tents, or even without, brings the very clear reality home that the system has failed. Can you talk about what a human rights approach to housing means, what implications you see from that kind of powerful idea on how we create and supply housing to meet the needs of all?
00:23:21 Leilani Farha
First of all, one thing that people don't realize about human rights is it's incredibly practical. People think of human rights as aspirational and, in actual fact, human rights means something. First of all, what's at the root of human rights? The root is to ensure human security and a dignified life. Homelessness triggers human rights concern, and what I love about human rights is it's really transformational because, if you think about how most people view homeless people living in a tent in a city park, especially in the north, they often think of them as trespassers, criminals, deviants, right? All these negative things. Human rights changes that on its head. For example, so suddenly, that person who rolls out a sleeping bag or puts up a tent isn't a criminal or a trespasser. They are a rights holder. They are claiming their right to housing, right? They're saying, "I got nowhere to go, folks. Here's where I'm going to claim my right to housing."
So, it can be transformational. It makes it very clear, under human rights, like, who is responsible for whom, who's accountable, and under a human rights framework, governments are responsible to their people, and so the rights holder makes their claim, and the government should be responsive to that claim. And governments, they're duty bearers. They should be taking steps to ensure everyone has access to adequate, affordable, safe, secure housing.
So, for me, it's a real game changer. It changes our conversation. It means that we look at the way financial actors are engaged in housing differently as well, right? They are really dominating the housing landscape in cities across the planet. They are using housing as a way to park, grow, leverage capital, right? They're not using housing to make sure families are secure and safe and can contribute to their communities.
Once we start viewing housing as a human right, it begs of government, it demands of government that they control those financial actors and make sure those financial actors are not undermining the right to housing and are, in fact, contributing to the right to housing.
00:25:44 David
So, let's take that a step further. A lot of cities in the world have direct responsibility for certain kinds of housing, particularly housing for lower-income people or people who are homeless. Almost all cities have some kind of planning authority that decides where different kinds of housing can be built, and certainly influences through that power can influence both private and public markets. If we take a human rights approach to housing, what are the consequences for the kinds of decisions that cities should be making? What should they be doing if they're going to meet the needs of their residents for adequate housing?
00:26:25 Leilani Farha
I think it changes the decisions that cities make. What I'd like to see is human rights as the outcome of city policies and programs. So, if we say, "Okay, well, what's the human rights outcome for housing?" so we're saying, "Okay, we want to eliminate homelessness," because homelessness is obviously a violation of the right to housing, so a human rights outcome would be the elimination of homelessness, so as a priority issue, because human rights are priority issues, especially something like homelessness, life and death matter, right?
[gentle music] So then, cities would have to be asking themselves, "Okay, if we adopt this zoning policy or if we allow these developers to create housing that's really expensive, are we going to meet our human rights outcome?" No, obviously not, because homeless people can't afford luxury, and preventing multifamily units from going up in certain areas, zoning restrictions, means that we won't be able to accommodate the needs of people living in homelessness and, let's say, for example, build what might be necessary, like social housing.
So, in my mind, what we need cities to do first is to commit to human rights outcomes. [gentle music fades out] We're doing this with climate. We're asking city governments, and we're asking national level governments to commit to certain climate outcomes, right? We don't want our temperatures to increase. We want to limit Co2 emissions, right? We're putting caps on things. So, it's the same concept, except we're saying, "Okay, housing is a human right. That should be an outcome, as well."
00:28:07 David
So, if we take that approach, how do we apply that in the global south, where in many places, it's a different issue? It's informal settlements—analogous issues—and, I think listeners can understand what the human rights approach might mean. But you've traveled the globe on behalf of the United Nations, looking at these issues. How do we apply those principles in the global south, as well? Our organization, C40, is half global north, half global south by design, and our global south mayors are really, in many places, grappling with these issues, which are terrifically challenging?
00:28:46 Leilani Farha
I actually see more similarities than differences between the global north and the global south. I mean, if you look at any city—any city—around the world right now, what you're going to see is housing unaffordability. Average housing costs are outstripping average incomes, right? And that would be as true in Cape Town as it is in Toronto, as it is in Hong Kong, as it is in Kinshasa, so I just want to be very clear about that, and what I'm finding as I travel the world and research the world, continuously, on the issues of housing, it's the same economic model and ideology in city after city. It's just that they're at different stages of economic development, sometimes.
But, it's the same ideology, and that ideology is –and people hate it when I use the term—they say it's used too much, and et cetera—but, it is a neoliberal ideology. It is allow housing to be used as a financial tool and instrument. And, when you do that, especially in the global south, where you're setting up mortgage-based housing systems when most people can't afford to pay more than $10 a month in rent, when you do that, what you're creating is this constant unaffordability problem, and I'm seeing that pattern across the world, which means what I would ask of city governments in the global south is the same that I would ask of city governments in the north, which is put human rights outcomes as your measurable goals, your targets. When you're deciding how to address unaffordability, ask yourselves, "Does a mortgage-based housing system work when 60% of my population is living in extreme poverty on $1.25 a day? Does luxury development make sense in my city when so many people are living in poverty and have informal work, at best?" It's the same conversation that we should be having in northern cities, right? Just a slightly different context.
00:30:58 David
It's a very interesting point because I've often found that global north cities, on the issue of climate mitigation, adaptation, resilience can learn as much from global south as the other way around. As I take your point, the financialization of the housing system is the same problem. It reflects a little bit differently, but it's essentially the same problem.
00:31:24 Leilani Farha
That's right. And I mean it's the World Bank that's pushing that model in so many developing countries. And I was just looking at some materials out of Kenya, because they're on a big push for affordable housing. They need more affordable housing. They have these huge slums. [pensive music] And the way they talk about it is, "We need an affordable housing program to kickstart our economy." Well, what does that tell you, right?
And it's that whole notion that if you create a mortgage-based housing system, what does that mean? It means people then can borrow off of the property that they own, right? That's what they're banking on, and they're just replicating a very troublesome housing system and the global north should be the big warning sign for the global south.
What really worries me is that you know that we've got these sustainable development goals that cities are working toward, and national governments are supposedly working toward, and they keep saying, "Well, we can't do this on our own. We need private capital," so they're inviting in private capital, and private capital does not have the best interests of the informal worker of Nairobi in their mind, right? So, it's very worrying. And then, add to that, does private capital care about the climate? [pensive music fades out]
00:32:41 David
Well, as you, you know, have just nicely segued, housing is not just a human rights issue. It's not just an equity issue. It's also a climate issue. I know The Shift has been looking at this. Can you talk a bit about how, from The Shift's perspective and your personal perspective, there's an intersection between trying to solve the housing crisis and trying to address climate?
00:33:09 Leilani Farha
There is a symbiotic relationship, obviously, between climate change and housing. Climate change is one of the biggest threats to the right to housing, and housing, itself, is a huge contributor to climate change, right? So, on the contribution side, we know that the built environment and construction is a huge percentage. Somewhere around 37% of emissions come from the built environment and construction, and that is obviously worrisome, when I hear that the solution to the housing crisis is, "Build, build, build. We need more supply," and I'm thinking, "Okay, well, first of all, you need more affordable supply, and second of all, the built environment is contributing to climate change, which is then worsening housing conditions."
It really does worry me when people go down the "Well, the only solution to the housing crisis is supply," because that will just worsen the climate crisis, and so, if you look at financialization of housing, it is premised on building more, building more, building more, and so we need to curb financialization, which will help curb this idea of just building, building, building.
00:34:32 David
What do you mean by the financialization of housing?
00:34:35 Leilani Farha
So, the financialization of housing is a fairly recent phenomenon. It comes out of the global financial crisis, ironically, and it's where we see institutional investors, pension funds, private equity firms buying up existing properties and then trying to make uber amounts of money off of those properties and using those properties to leverage more capital. The way they make their money is through predatory practices that really affect tenants. So, what they want to do is squeeze as much rent as they can out of every single tenant, and they do that by raising rents. They do it by repurposing buildings, so making a kind of B-class building an A+ building and repositioning it as luxury. So that's what we mean by the financialization of housing, generally.
00:35:31 David
So, in the context of informal settlements which, generally speaking, because they're informal, people are occupying without cost for the land, and building basic structure might involve that land being acquired in some way by an organization that's using a financial model and thereby, in effect, making wealth for themselves off land that was previously used for housing, even though it was very basic.
00:36:01 Leilani Farha
100%. Exactly. Even worse, often informal settlements are on public lands, and what we see is that city or national government that owns that land will sell that land to a financial actor who then forcibly evicts the people who are living there in informality, and build something luxury, not intended for that population. I read a stat the other day that every week, the world is building the size of Paris.
00:36:38 David
Wow.
00:36:29 Leilani Farha
Every week. So, we have an obsession with building that has to be curbed. [somber music] On the other side, climate change-related disasters... The floods in California are a perfect example. People living in tents and homelessness have died in those floods. Look at what happened in Pakistan with the floods. People living in the most precarious housing lost their homes. Thousands and thousands of people lost their homes. We know that climate change exacerbates bad housing conditions, right? It leads to more homelessness. It deepens homelessness and deleterious housing conditions. So, the vicious circle is worth noting, right? Because you've got tons of people investing in buildings that don't meet need, then you have those buildings contributing to climate change, then you have climate change leading to more homelessness and more poor housing conditions. [somber music fades out] And then, you have the response to that: build more housing. So, that's the circle we have to break.
00:37:44 David
Love that analysis and, you know, it's very clear from C40's research that both existing and new buildings are a huge contributor to climate change, and I think, if we had a bit more time, we could go into it in some depth, but I do have to ask you about The Shift directives, because I think our listeners need to know about this. Can you, sort of succinctly, just summarize them, and then let us know where those who are interested can find more information?
00:38:12 Leilani Farha
Few governments, and certainly few investors would ever consider that an appropriate response to climate change is the regulation of private investment in housing, but that's what we're sort of positing, and The Shift directives are really aimed at trying to reshape our economies away from using housing to supposedly grow economies, and to ensure that the right to housing is actually implemented.
And so, we pulled together these ten Shift directives, aimed at both governments and investors, in particular, that offer recommendations for what should be done to curb this financialization of housing, and there are ten of them so no, I can't summarize them all, but I can say we cover off all of the sort of hallmarks of the financialization of housing that people don't often think about, things like short-term rental platforms. How is that contributing to the financialization of housing and the building of more housing that's unnecessary? We address real-estate investment trusts, which is a financial tool for purchasing apartment buildings that does nothing good for the economy and really just ends up in raising rents. So, we suggest that governments look at the tax provisions that make real-estate investment trusts a very nice financial vehicle in the area of housing. We address what central banks should be doing. We've looked at student housing – super important. Young people cannot afford housing that's attached to universities, for example, so they can afford the fees for university or housing to go to university, but they can't afford both. So, we try to address that.
So, really, as I said, a very wide swath. They can find The Shift directives on The Shift website, which is just make-the-shift.org, and I hope people find them useful, especially city governments.
00:40:12 David
Well, I have them open in front of me. They're fascinating, and listeners couldn't see, but I had a big smile when you said, "No, I can't summarize them." [Leilani laughs] I mean, they're extremely powerful and, you know, this idea that housing is a human right and that financialization is creating the problems we see in people accessing a right to housing is just so revealing, I think, particularly in the context of climate change, because ultimately, President Clinton said—or his advisor said—"It's the economy, stupid," and those economic models are what are creating climate change challenges, as well, in many, many ways.
I wish we could talk all day. I really appreciate you taking the time to be on our podcast. make-the-shift.org – really powerful and fascinating directions on how to address the housing crisis, starting with the idea that housing is a human right and includes very good thinking about climate. And soon to come at the Journal of City Climate Policy and Economy, there will be a piece from The Shift with some interesting thoughts about how to address climate housing at the same time, and really start to build a much more equal society which will be able to address both challenges and others. [light, rhythmic music]
So, thank you very much. Good luck in that big snowstorm in Ottawa. We're surviving the one here in Toronto, but we're both pretty lucky to be housed and be able to be on this podcast.
00:41:50 Leilani Farha
Absolutely. Thanks so much, David. It's a pleasure.
00:41:52 David
The pleasure is ours. Thank you. [light, rhythmic music fades out]
[pensive music] Mayors and the cities they lead are in a unique position to ensure that equity and inclusion are at the heart of climate policies and all other urban decision-making. This includes co-designing and delivering programs with the most vulnerable communities, as we heard is being done in Rio.
We heard from Leilani about the need to shift from an economic system, which values the profitability of housing over its social benefits. Prioritizing housing as a human right and including the voices of marginalized communities in the solutions to the climate and housing crises are critical in delivering inclusive climate action. There is no climate justice without social justice. Equity needs to be at the heart of climate change solutions, and cities are demonstrating what this looks like. [pensive music fades out]
[upbeat, energetic music] Next week on the podcast, we'll be discussing why reshaping and rethinking our economic systems is critical to addressing the climate crisis. That'll be one you don't want to miss.
[Cities 1.5 main theme music]
Thanks for listening to Cities 1.5. I'm David Miller, the Managing Director of the C40 Centre for City Climate Policy and Economy. I was the Mayor of Toronto, Canada, and know, first-hand, the impact cities can have in solving the climate crisis.
Cities 1.5 is produced by Jessica Schmidt. Our executive producers are Isabel Sitcov and Jessica Abraham. Our music is by Lorna Gilfedder. Cities 1.5 is a production of the University of Toronto Press and the Journal of City Climate Policy and Economy.
To find out more, visit the show’s website link in the episode notes. See you next time. [Cities 1.5 main theme music ends]