Explain why international agreements are essential if anything effective is to be done about global warming.

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Examine sustainable approaches to urban living in megacities you have studied (15)

The term ‘Sustainable Development’ was first introduced as part of the Brundtland Report in 1987. It was defined as; “Development that meets the needs of society today without compromising future generations to meet their own needs”. This was later discussed at the UN Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit in 1992, where two other ‘agendas’ were constructed in order to improve sustainability worldwide. The first was Agenda 21, which encouraged locally based projects and the second was The Brown Agenda which stated that the solution to improving developing cities was to focus on different aspects of the environment. This included, providing clean water and shelter as well as managing air pollution, noise and safety standards.

In 2000, the UN developed goals to be achieved by the year 2020; this mainly consisted of improving the lives of 100 million slum dwellers. Furthermore, in trying to make megacities more sustainable, the term ‘ecological footprint’ has emerged. This is a measure of human demand on the Earth's ecosystems. It compares human demand with Earth's ecological ability to regenerate it and it is important for individuals to work towards reducing their ecological footprint in order to improve sustainability in large, urbanised megacities.

In Mumbai, India the rate of growth is quite rapid. A lot of Hyper-urbanisation has occurred, resulting in their being a divide in the economy. The middle-upper class professionals contribute towards the formal economy while the lower class market traders make up the informal economy, which also creates a strong social divide. The majority of the lower-class slum dwellers live in Dharavi, one of the world’s largest shanty towns. It is located between Mumbai's two main suburban railway lines and is home to over 2.5 million people. Dharavi produces over $500 million worth of goods and has several different built-up industries within its borders. There are also self-help clinics, food halls and community centres that have been built to improve the sense of community in the shanty town.

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The government in Mumbai have created a plan called ‘Vision Mumbai’ to tackle the city’s problems and make it more sustainable. It aims to reduce poverty, improve housing and transport and increase employment opportunities as well as transform the environment with the intention of making it greener. Consequently, Slum dwellers are being moved to new seven storey-apartments resulting in 45,000 shanty towns being destroyed across the city along with a new metro line, which will be completed by 2011 and an elevated highway. NGO’s are building 325 open spaces to improve the environment as well as the government creating ...

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