Person:
Deuskar, Chandan

Last updated: June 2, 2025

Biography

Chandan Deuskar is an Urban Development Specialist at the World Bank. He leads the work on knowledge products for the City Climate Finance Gap Fund. He has contributed to the World Bank’s analytical and operational work on urban development in several countries. Chandan holds a PhD in city and regional planning from the University of Pennsylvania and authored Urban Planning in a World of Informal Politics based on his doctoral research. He also holds a master’s degree in city planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University.

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Now showing 1 - 9 of 9

Unlivable: What the Urban Heat Island Effect Means for East Asia’s Cities
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-12-20) Roberts, Mark; Deuskar, Chandan; Jones, Nicholas; Park, Jane
Amid continuing urban growth and the accelerating effects of climate change, East Asian cities suffer from more extreme temperatures than surrounding rural areas - being up to 2 degrees Celsius hotter on average. This urban heat island (UHI) effect is caused by cities’ relative lack of vegetation, the prevalence of impervious surfaces, construction of buildings in locations that block breezes, releases of heat from cars and machinery, and other features of the urban environment. In the decades ahead, the UHI effect will interact with climate change in ways that make cities even more prone to heat waves - already increasing in frequency and intensity - especially among East Asian cities in tropical zones and in low- and middle-income countries. Extreme heat not only lowers the economic competitiveness and livability of cities in the region but also increases the risk of death and illness. Groups such as low-income residents, outdoor workers, and the region’s growing elderly population are the most vulnerable to extreme heat. The poor are also more likely to bear the brunt of these harms: certain urban neighborhoods, particularly poorer ones, may be several degrees hotter than others within the same city. This report uses satellite data, on-the-ground data collection, and a review of economic literature to shed new light on the magnitude of the UHI effect and its impacts on East Asian cities. Using a “Places, People, Institutions” framework, the report provides practical suggestions to help policy makers to rise to the extreme urban heat challenge. These actions, such as promoting urban greening, adopting heat-resilient urban design, and implementing heat wave early warning systems - can help to protect East Asia’s urban residents from the impacts of extreme heat, contributing to cities that are more competitive, livable, and inclusive.
Embodied Carbon Emissions
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024) Chen, Tao; Deuskar, Chandan
The United Nation (UN) projects that 2.5 billion more people will live in cities by 2050, up from 4.4 billion today. Of the growing global population, most will come from the urban areas of low- and middle-income countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, with Sub-Saharan African cities currently already seeing a 4.1 percent growth in population annually. African cities need to construct an estimated 56 million additional housing units to meet demand. The construction of this volume of new buildings and accompanying urban infrastructure involves significant embodied carbon emissions, i.e., emissions stemming from manufacturing, transportation, installation, maintenance, and disposal of building materials. While public discourse often centers around curtailing operational emissions, for example through energy efficiency and low-carbon energy supply, embodied emissions may surpass operational emissions, depending on the project. There has been limited research comparing operational and embodied emissions at the scale of entire cities, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. However, rough calculations suggest that in certain cases, embodied emissions may approach or even exceed the volume of operational emissions, for example in rapidly expanding cities with relatively low operational emissions due to mild climates, low household incomes, or renewable sources of grid electricity. This note is intended as an introduction to the subject of embodied emissions, aimed at urban decision-makers in low- and middle-income countries, including government officials, urban planners, advisors from international organizations, and others. It assesses prevailing practices within the construction industry and delves into several options to mitigate embodied emissions associated with construction. The annex also provides an overview on tools that can aid in estimating the environmental impact of various construction standards and policies.
Carbon Crediting and Urban Climate Change Mitigation: Assessing Potential Impacts
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023) Hoornweg, Daniel; Wotten, David; Deuskar, Chandan
Approximately 70 percent of greenhouse gas emissions are generated through consumption in urban areas, which means that decarbonization of cities is essential to limit climate change to 1.5 to 2 °C. While per capita emissions in low- and middle-income countries remain low so far, prompt action is needed to ensure that cities in these countries remain on a low-carbon pathway, before rapid urbanization and increases in consumption lock in high emissions for decades. Technically feasible actions can cut up to 90% of emissions in cities globally between now and 2050. However, the infrastructure investments necessary to do this would cost USD 1.8 trillion each year, by one estimate.
Banking on Cities: Investing in Resilient and Low-Carbon Urbanization
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-06-03) Deuskar, Chandan; Murray, Sally; Leiva Molano, Juan Sebastián; Khan, Ibrahim Ali; Maria, Augustin
Cities around the world are responsible for ever-growing shares of people, assets, and economic activities vulnerable to climate disasters. They are also responsible for the majority of the world’s carbon emissions. Cities in low- and middle-income countries still have a window of opportunity to grow in resilient and low-carbon ways, to protect their populations and build strong and sustainable economic foundations. What are the resilient and low-carbon investments that these cities could make in the coming decades? How much will these investments cost, and where can cities look for resources to pay for these investments? These are the questions that Banking on Cities: Investing in Resilient and Low-Carbon Urbanization considers. The publication provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date assessment of key resilient and low-carbon investment costs in major urban sectors in all low- and middle-income countries to 2050. These include investments in urban transportation, energy-efficient buildings, solid waste management, water and wastewater, flood protection, and heat resilience. The estimated total cost of these investments revealed by this analysis is sobering: between US$256 and US$821 billion per year. However, “climate” investments are not a separate category of investments that cities need to make in addition to their regular investments. These are core urban investments that cities need to make for their local economic and social benefits in addition to their climate benefits. Banking on Cities advances the discussion on urban climate finance by exploring how cities can identify sources of funding and finance that are suited to different types of resilient and low-carbon urban investments. Just as climate investments are not a separate category of investments, climate finance is not necessarily a separate category of finance. While climate-specific sources, including carbon markets, green bonds, and others, are part of the picture, making these investments will require cities to address their financial fundamentals, including revenues, transfers, creditworthiness, and fiscal efficiency. This report will be a helpful guide for cities and national governments as they develop their urban investment strategies.
Primer: Implications of Electric Vehicles for Urban Public Space
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022) Deuskar, Chandan; Guitaut, Charlène de; Maria, Augustin
Electrification of transport is an essential component of urban climate change mitigation. Transport is responsible for around a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions. Emissions from the transport sector could double by 2050 in a business-as-usual scenario.2 An estimated 21% of the emissions reductions necessary to bring urban emissions down to nearly net-zero are in the transport sector. Reducing emissions from urban transport primarily involves reducing dependence on private vehicles, through modal shifts to low-emissions alternatives, changes in urban form to reduce transport demand, and other actions. However, given that private vehicles will never completely disappear, a shift towards electric vehicles can help private vehicles reduce their carbon emissions (contingent on the decarbonization of electricity). According to the International Energy Agency, if the growth in electric vehicles experienced in recent years is sustained, CO2 emissions from cars can be put on a path in line with the Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario.
Urban Greenhouse Gas Modeling Tools
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022) Deuskar, Chandan
Urban GHG modeling tools vary in their intended uses, user interfaces, inputs, outputs, costs, etc. This knowledge note is intended as a primer, to help cities and organizations working with cities understand and select from among the tools available, based on their needs. It does not endorse any one tool over others.
Global Urban Carbon Emissions: Data Sources
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022) Deuskar, Chandan
City-level greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions data is necessary as an input into identifying, planning, and monitoring urban climate change mitigation actions. Until recently, the availability of emissions data at the city level required the existence of a local emissions inventory, produced through painstaking local data collection. These inventories use different methodologies and urban boundary definitions, and are available for different years, making comparison or trend analysis across cities difficult. However, academic researchers and international organizations have used modeling techniques and proxy data from various sources to estimate city-level emissions globally. As a result, data sets are now available that estimate emissions, by sector, for thousands of cities worldwide.
Primer on Urban Form and Greenhouse Gas Emissions
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2021) Deuskar, Chandan
This knowledge note aims to summarize the relationships between urban form and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, for reference by practitioners and policymakers. It explores the ways in which various elements of urban form can impact the carbon of urban growth. In the context of GHG emissions, urban form is usually discussed in terms of population density, which is often visualized in terms of building heights, and its impact on transportation-related emissions. However, many different dimensions of the urban built environment, including not just density but also land use patterns, the configuration of street networks, and the materials and orientations of buildings, can impact urban GHG emissions in various ways. Urban density itself may or may not take the form of tall buildings. The impact of urban form on emissions is not restricted to its effect on transportation. The note clarifies these relationships, and also provides examples in which urban growth modeling tools quantify the emissions reductions from various growth scenarios.
Urbanization and Development: Is Latin America and the Caribbean Different from the Rest of the World?
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-03-03) Blankespoor, Brian; Roberts, Mark; Deuskar, Chandan; Stewart, Benjamin
Two long-established stylized facts in the urban and development economics literatures are that: (a) a country's level of economic development is strongly positively correlated with its level of urbanization; and (b) a country's level of urbanization is strongly negatively correlated with the size of its agricultural sector. However, countries in the Latin America and Caribbean region appear to depart significantly from the rest of the world in these two basic relationships. Although Latin American countries appear to be significantly more urbanized than predicted based on these global relationships, Caribbean countries appear significantly less urbanized. However, analyses involving cross-country comparisons of urbanization levels are undermined by systematic measurement errors arising from differences in how countries define their urban areas. This paper reexamines whether Latin America and Caribbean countries differ from the rest of the world in the basic stylized facts of urbanization, development, and structural transformation. The analysis makes use of two alternative methodologies for the consistent definition of urban areas across countries: the Agglomeration Index methodology and a methodology based on the identification of dense spatially contiguous clusters of population. Both methodologies rely on globally gridded population data sets as input. There exist several such data sets, and so the paper also assesses the robustness of the findings to the choice of input population layer.