- The green economy: a strategic approach to sustainable urban development in Caribbean Small Island Developing States (SIDS).   460 kb by    Arthur, Martha Jillyan | marthajarthur@yahoo.com    Short Outline Adopting a green economy approach in the Caribbean could provide a framework whereby decisions and strategies regarding cities and urban centres can promote resource efficiency, effective environmental management and a better standard of living for urban residents. Abstract Two major development issues facing the Caribbean are the challenges of rapid urban growth and the impacts of climate change. Caribbean countries are now facing an urban future, placing cities at the centre of the sustainable urban development debate. It is estimated that the Caribbean is now 75% urban with variations in urban growth patterns across countries (Cohen 2003). Urban development challenges such as growing informal settlements, peri-urbanism, increasing demands on services such as water and sanitation and urban crime are becoming a common feature of Caribbean cities. Added to this the impacts of global climate change threaten the environmental and economic stability of Caribbean SIDS. In 2007 the Inter- governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported that there was clear warming of the climate and provided evidence on the anthropogenic contributions to climate change. While the region’s contribution to global climate change is negligible, rising sea levels and hydro-metrological risks due to this warming is detrimental to Caribbean islands. The IPCC projected that in the Caribbean there was “a mean relative sea level rise of 1mm/yr during the 20th century”. This presents a challenge for Caribbean countries since much of the built development and critical infrastructure is located along the coast and more than half the population live with in 1.5km of the shoreline (Mimura et al, 2007). Although Caribbean governments have National Development Strategies most of these do not have a clear urban focus addressing the specific challenges faced in cities and urban areas. This paper therefore seeks to generate discussion on the urban specificity of the green economy concept and to highlight the potential advantages to Caribbean cities. It discusses strategies and policy initiatives for greening the urban sector in the Caribbean through efficient energy use and resource consumption in the key areas of transportation, urban form, the built environment and the cross cutting issues of water, waste management and sanitation. The Paper also argues that implementing green economy strategies can support more sustainable consumption practices, and can encourage well designed compact urban spaces that promote more efficient urban infrastructure and service delivery. Ultimately the paper concludes that implementing the green economy in the urban sector initiatives can address many urban development challenges, while taking into account the region’s intrinsic vulnerabilities. Keywords Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2013: Frontiers of Planning - Evolving and declining models of city planning practice   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper