The unbridled consumption of contemporary society has led to the need to rethink the relationship between man and the environment. In this context, the demand for environmental management has arisen due to the growing concern of environmentalists and the need for organizations to respect the environmental agreements established nationally and internationally.
In this sense, it is the competence of the environmental manager to reconcile economy, environment and society. This means that the professional must ensure the maintenance of the economic power of enterprises and, simultaneously, the rational exploitation of natural resources, ensuring the assets of nature for the present and future generations. For this, the environmental manager must develop methods and actions, based on the notions of sustainability and socio-environmental responsibility. The professional is responsible for ensuring the execution of practices such as: reduction of man's impact on nature; rational and sustainable use of natural resources; preservation of biodiversity; use of the correct methods of garbage disposal and toxic materials; adoption of recycling systems; use of methods to reduce air, water and soil pollution; treatment and reuse of natural resources and raw materials in the productive process of companies; reduction of water and energy consumption; development of environmental education programs, recycling and proper disposal of products such as batteries, tires, batteries, electronics parts etc.
Municipal financing is one of this. How can municipalities, and local government, gain access to funding for mitigation plans while discouraging debt? Developing countries that are on the front line of climate change (like Small Islands Developing States) contribute the less but face the most. How can they finance expensive mitigation measures if they do not have the resources? They usually turn to foreign aid (from countries that contribute the most to climate change), and are in turn indebted to those. This is a vicious cycle, that needs to be reviewed. Municipalities need to further explore another model which looks at boosting liveability along with economic empowerment.
Enabling national policies are necessary to advance climate action at the city level POLICY PERSPECTIVES Local governments have often been named as key actors in the transformation towards a more sustainable society. Many local decisions can directly affect the environment, such as local authorities’ regulation of transportation, building construction, spatial planning, and economic matters.
Cities have a unique ability to address global climate change challenges. Choices made in cities today about long-lived urban infrastructure will determine the extent and impact of climate change, our ability to achieve emission reductions and our capacity to adapt to changing circumstances. • Local action takes place in the context of broader national frameworks that can either empower or slow down city-level action; therefore, supportive national and regional policies and incentives are required to ensure city-level initiatives have sufficient resources and potential to effect meaningful change. • National policies often establish what cities can and cannot do in terms of climate policy action (e.g. access to financial resources). As such, national and regional governments should ensure that their policy frameworks are well-aligned and work to support city-level action. • National support is needed to help cities establish policy frameworks and minimum standards and to garner the required resources and technical information. By building environmental goals and incentives into national policies, governments can ensure that competition among cities results in a “race to the top”. • Identifying national policies that conflict with or prevent local climate action is an important way in which national governments can improve their alignment with local climate initiatives. • Investing in low-carbon, climate-resilient urban infrastructure has low incremental costs and provides multiple local benefits, e.g. sustainable urban transport projects can reduce traffic congestion and local air pollution as well as greenhouse gas emissions. • Public sector financing will not be sufficient; therefore, cities need to mobilise private capital to fill funding gaps for green urban infrastructure projects. Encouraging private sector investment requires national level policies that improve the enabling environment for private investments in green urban infrastructure and the risk-return profile of these investments . • Increasing urbanisation has significant implications for climate change; air quality; water availability and quality; land use; and waste management. Provided that the right policies are put in place, the current wave of rapid urbanisation offers an unprecedented opportunity to create sustainable, liveable and dynamic cities. • Cities are also particularly vulnerable to climate change – both because extreme weather events can be especially disruptive to complex urban systems and because so much of the world’s urban population live in low-lying coastal areas, particularly in Asia . Vulnerability to storm surges and rising sea levels is set to increase rapidly over the coming decades, as much urban growth is concentrated in Asia.
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