The possession of advanced degrees, participation in institutions, and recognition do not necessarily indicate any useful knowledge or reasoning skills. Often it seems to merely indicate indoctrination.

[A] high proportion of energy, industrial and transportation emissions is generated by urban areas. Although most of the electricity and fuels are produced outside cities, they are aimed at satisfying cities’ “thirst” of energy. Therefore, urban areas place a huge burden not only on the absorptive capacity of the local environment;

Nonsense. Cities can be very energy efficient on a per capita basis, it's just that there are a lot of people jammed cheek by jowl into them. More importantly, energy use is an indication of a high quality of life, something that we should desire for all humans. The implied criticism of calling it a “thirst”, as if it was a vice or an addiction like alcoholism, is entirely mistaken.

[U]rban centers concentrate a large proportion of coastal and other populations most at risk from the effects of climate change (IPCC Summary for Policy Makers). The need for urban and local authorities and civil groups to develop actions to reduce greenhouse gases . . .

There is no "need" for various bureaucracies to "develop actions to reduce greenhouse gases". This accomplishes absolutely nothing so far as climate change is concerned.

At the same time, cities are centers of diverse kinds of innovations (including technological innovation) that may contribute to de-carbonizing our societies and making them more sustainable and resilient. Only through the transformation of the infrastructure, especially transport, and the use of power in cities’ buildings, in the behavior, and in the production and consumption patterns of their residents, will it be possible to reduce greenhouse gases.

This is religious doctrine, magical thinking based in dogma that has no correspondence with reality. If all of these things were done they would have zero effect on climate change. The trivial reductions of GHG emissions that such a program might achieve, though even this is exceedingly unlikely, are meaningless in physical reality.

The use of energy is one of the most useful measures of civilization, and it will multiply in future. The problem isn't the use of energy, it is that we produce it in primitive ways. This is a problem even if it turns out, as some claim, that GHGs are a bogus worry. (Consensus is politics not science, and usually provides some moments of levity after a time. Solar wind? No such thing. Impossible.)

The sort of muddled thinking that seeks to cope with threats by hiding under the bed, breathing shallowly and fasting does not belong in international institutions charged with developing strategies for facing threats. It is a sure sign of ignorance, a narrow scope of thought that fails to grasp the magnitude of problems or their broad ramifications.

Philip Small (this seems to be the all Philip, all the time, network lately) posts on an issue that exemplifies this failing.

Crop residue is not a waste. It is a precious commodity and essential to preserving soil quality.

Production systems must be developed so that ethanol produced must be at least C neutral if not C negative. Temptations [to mine soil vitality] aside, biofuels produced from crop residues may neither be free nor cheap.

Philip is quoting from a Rattan Lal article in CSA News (pay walled). Lal is someone I've cited before due to his advocacy for no-till agriculture to avoid the truly stupendous emissions that result from plowing up land. It's like skinning an animal or stripping the bark from a tree. It exposes their moist and tender innards to the atmosphere, allowing their juices and gasses to escape. Here he is making a related point, one that every grower understands at some level, even when it isn't articulated and acted on. Whatever is removed from the land must be replaced, or there will be a steady degradation of the land. There is no such thing as "waste".

Lal continues:

Harvesting crop residues for use as fodder for livestock, residential fuel for cooking and heating, construction material, and other competing uses is a reality in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, China, and other developing countries. Therefore, it is not surprising that these are also the regions that have been plagued with severe problems of soil degradation. . .

The stubborn trends of low crop yields and perpetual hunger and malnutrition in sub-Saharan Africa and in regions of rainfed agriculture in South Asia cannot be reversed without returning crop residues to the soil and also supplementing them with liberal applications of other biosolids.

This can be unpacked at bit and stated differently.

There is nothing wrong with using crop residues as fodder for livestock, but there is something wrong with not returning the livestock "residue" to the land. Best of all, take the livestock to the fodder rather than taking the fodder to the livestock. Problem solved.

There is nothing wrong with using crop residues for cooking and heating, but there is something wrong with the technologies used to do this. If newer gasification systems are used, many of which are cheap, scalable and so appropriate even for developing rural societies, more energy is available and the "residue" is a wonderful soil amendment that sequesters carbon for long time periods while improving the soil - a carbon negative system.

The use of crop residues for construction material can also be a wise choice since when well done the carbon is sequestered for long time periods. This may not be obvious to all but is easily understandable the first time you see a home built with bales of rice straw and skim coated with local mud stucco.

Lal is mistaken that "low crop yields and perpetual hunger and malnutrition . . . cannot be reversed without returning crop residues to the soil". The issue is managing the soil and returning essential nutrients and carbon. This can be done while also producing livestock forage, energy and building materials if we are smart about it. The problem with many current practices is that they aren't smart. Crop residues are not "wastes", they are valuable commodities that humans can't eat but will feed other beings with superior digestive systems, or can be carefully used by humans in ways that produce amendments (such as agrichar) that actually improve the soil.

Production can increase, and that can provide some energy for cities. It all depends on how it is done. Which brings us back to the simplistic ideas quoted at the beginning of this post. We would be wise to improve our energy production methods so that cities can use ever more of it. The people of Mexico City should consume energy like those in L.A., not the reverse. We can't deal with current threats by regressing to a more primitive state and living like monks. That will just weaken us before the axe falls.

The issue isn't consumption, it is production. And we would do well to get very much better at it since the threats to humanity are lined up like chunks of the Shoemaker-Levy comet ready to pummel us repeatedly as time goes on. There is no place to hide, no way to appease gods of some sort, and so avoid having to face threats. It's time to mature a bit and get busy.