Philippines are building a fully green city to prevent natural disasters

Philippines, with it’s capital Manila located on a massive valley fault that can move any time, are one of the most prone to natural disasters countries in the world. To prevent devastation, government is planning to build a whole new, pollution-free city located in a disaster-resilient region. High elevation, nearby mountain range, and built-in flood preventing system is supposed to save it from all major disasters.

In addition, the city’s “greenness” is planned to be achieved in three ways:

1. Design that minimizes pollution level

2. Buildings of low energy usage and green energy sources

3. Usage of locally-sourced building material

In my opinion plan is ambitious yet brings out a very serious question of how can governments prevent natural disasters, given limited resources? The Philippino plan is expensive and would be impossible for most of the countries in danger. Cutting costs, however, would mean giving up on environmental ambition of the plan. Solving that tradeoff requires optimizing and re-thinking the way we build green cities — to maximize benefit while lowering costs. This, however, would call for strategy, and high involvement of governments, industry and market leaders, and analysts.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/style/article/new-clark-city-philippines/index.html