Green urban areas within strategies about climate change: a preliminary approach for Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain

Abstract

Climate change is the most important challenge for our society. It is a major drawback and its impacts are affecting all regions of the planet, especially islands. Accordingly, there are a lot of top-down approaches via global agreements, protocols and strategies. However, the bottom-up approach, where the society is involved, needs more attention, and it is where the urban areas are fundamental. It becomes relevant taking into account that societies are mainly concentrated in urban areas where both mitigation and adaptation should be developed. The temperature of the cities, as in other parts of the Earth, is increasing due to the Green House Gas emissions (GHG). In addition, urban areas are also affected by other factor that increases the temperature such as the heat islands phenomenon, due to the human activities and urban infrastructures. The GHG emissions in Canary Islands, as total CO2 emissions, increased until 2005, reaching 24,609.9 Gg CO2-eq. From 2005 to 2014 these total emissions decreased until 16,230.8 Gg CO2-eq. Temperature, measured in the meteorological station located at the Gran Canaria airport, increased since 1951, especially the evolution of minimum temperature where the dependence on time was higher than that for the maximum temperature evolution. Accordingly, in a century the maximum temperature would increase close 1.8ºC, while the minimum temperature would be 3.7ºC higher than the current records. Among all the possible actions in terms of climate change, green urban areas are effective to ameliorate the impact of the increasing temperature and, at the same time, can be considered as a social tool for a new lifestyle. However, there is not a long-term strategy at the capital of Gran Canaria, which is actually the more inhabited city in the Canary Islands. Then, in the case of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, the green urban areas could be implemented overall by 51,651.9 m2 (in different areas), 7,769.3 m (generally in line roads). Eventually, there is a strong social support for the implementation of green areas in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, as it was proved in a survey.