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The Role of Local Governments in International Climate Policy The Role of Local Governments in International Climate Policy The Role of Local Governments in International Climate Policy
Abstract
Local governments play an increasingly important role in international climate policy. Climate action follows existing trajectories of sustainable development action at the local level. The history of climate action in cities suggests a lot of potential for learning from previous sustainability experiences. Three aspects of climate change governance are important at the local level: the motivations for responding to climate change, the different responses deployed, and the city structures and networks representing cities in the global spheres. Current interest in climate change action at the local level follows three decades of local sustainability action. Because of engagement with environmental conflicts at the local level, environmental justice activists also influenced local climate action. Cities and settlements are exciting policy arenas with great potential to enable just transitions. However, the impacts of local government's action at both the local level and internationally are not always evident. Cities have sought to address climate change through planning, harnessing co-benefits of climate action, and finding appropriate evaluation means. Solutions have also been developed through the insertion of cities in global circuits of knowledge production via transnational municipal networks (TMNs). Local government action can only be explained with reference to the international climate change regime. International policy events influence local government action, and local government action influences international discourses of climate action. A range of actors, from local governments to businesses, communities, and civil society, also play a role in addressing climate change. Still, they require autonomy and the resources to deliver mitigation and adaptation actions that local governments can mediate.
Near 1,500 governments worldwide, including over 1,000 local governments, have declared a climate emergency. Such declarations constitute a response to the growing visibility of social movements in international politics as well as the growing role of cities in climate governance. Framing climate change as an emergency, however, can bring difficulties in both the identification of the most appropriate measures to adopt and the effectiveness of those measures in the long run. We use textual analysis to examine the motivations and intended outcomes of 300 declarations endorsed by local governments. The analysis demonstrates that political positioning, previous experience of environmental action within local government, and pressure from civil society are the most common motivations for declaring a climate emergency at the local level. The declarations constitute symbolic gestures highlighting the urgency of the climate challenge, but they do not translate into radically different responses to the climate change challenge. The most commonly intended impacts are increasing citizens' awareness of climate change and establishing mechanisms to influence future planning and infrastructure decisions. However, the declarations are adopted to emphasize the increasing role cities are taking on, situating local governments as crucial agents bridging global and local action agendas.
In this review, we take stock of the last decade of research on climate change governance in urban areas since the 2009 conference in Copenhagen. Using a systematic evaluation of academic publications in the field, we argue that the current moment of research has been shaped by two recent waves of thought. The first, a wave of urban optimism, which started in 2011 and peaked in 2013, engaged with urban areas as alternative sites for governance in the face of the crumbling international climate regime. The second, a wave of urban pragmatism, which started in 2016, has sought to reimagine urban areas following the integration of the “sub‐national” as a meaningful category in the international climate regime after the 2015 Paris Agreement for Climate Action. Four themes dominate the debate on climate change governance in urban areas: why there is climate action, how climate action is delivered, how it is articulated in relation to internationally reaching networks, and what implications it has to understand environmental or climate justice within urban settings. Calls to understand the impacts of climate change policy have fostered research on climate change politics, issues of power and control, conflicts, and the inherently unjust nature of much climate policy. What is largely missing from the current scholarship is a sober assessment of the mundane aspects of climate change governance on the ground and a concern with what kind of cultural and socio‐economic change is taking place, beyond comparative analyses of the effectiveness of climate policies.
This article is categorized under: Policy and Governance > Governing Climate Change in Communities, Cities, and Regions
The Paris Agreement requires measurement of the progress made on adaptation. Tracking the progress made by governments through analysis of policies provides insight into the goals and means to achieve adaptation targets. Here we show the current state of the art in public adaptation planning affecting 136 of the largest coastal port urban agglomerations, covering 68 countries. We identify 226 adaptation policies: 88 at national level, 57 at regional/state level and 81 at city/metropolitan level. This set of adaptation policies can be considered the latest, most up-to-date database of governmental and public-led adaptations. Our analyses show that (1) in one half of cases, there is no evidence of policy implementation, (2) in almost 85% of cases, planned adaptation actions are not driven by present or future climatic impacts or risks, and (3) formal adaptation planning is relatively recent and is concentrated in more developed areas and countries.
Worldwide, there are an increasing number of transnational networks on climate actions driven by non-state actors. There is a wealthy literature analysing models of multilevel governance of climate change focusing mainly on the engagement of cities and local governments. To a lesser extent research has focused on the collaboration between regional administrations and local governments. Against this backdrop, we introduce the multilevel-governance model observed in the Covenant of Mayors (CoM) framework, named Covenant Territorial Coordinators (CTCs). The CoM initiative has more than 7600 signatories as of October 2017, covering 238 million inhabitants from European, Central Asian and South Mediterranean cities. The peculiarity of CoM compared to other transna-tional initiatives, is the engagement of small and medium cities (less than 10,000 inhabitants) in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, with almost 66 % of signatories, mainly small cities, supported by CTCs. In this article we present, analyse and discuss the role of regions and provinces acting as CTCs in supporting smaller local authorities for energy-climate planning, presenting examples of successful collaboration between different levels of government. Finally, we identify and discuss in which EU countries the multi-level governance model based on CTCs as observed in the Covenant is likely to be successful.
There is a growing recognition of the links between the increasing prevalence of noncommunicable diseases, environmental concerns including biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation, and socioecological issues such as ecological (in)justice. This has encouraged a number of recent calls for the development of integrative approaches aimed at addressing these issues—also known as nature-based solutions. An example of an emerging nature-based solution is a ‘green prescription’, broadly defined as a nature-based health intervention. Green prescriptions are typically designed for patients with a defined need and they have the potential to supplement orthodox medical treatments, particularly those aimed at addressing noncommunicable diseases. It is also thought that green prescriptions could bring about significant environmental, economic, and social co-benefits. However, researchers have recently expressed concerns over taking the ‘dose of nature’ approach, in that it may be too reductionistic for the complex social settings in which it is provided. Here we frame a holistic philosophical perspective and discuss green prescribing logic, types, mechanisms and fundamental remaining questions and challenges. We place a significant emphasis on the potential co-benefits of green prescriptions, and the importance of taking a planetary health approach. More research is needed to determine how this potential can be realised, and to further understand the complexities of the nature–human health relationship. However, with additional research and support, there is huge potential for green prescriptions to contribute to both reactive (health care) and proactive (health promoting) public health solutions whilst enhancing the natural environment.
Over the past few decades, cities have repeatedly demonstrated high levels of ambition with regard to climate action. Global environmental governance has been marked by a proliferation of policy actions taken by local governments around the world to demonstrate their potential to advance climate change mitigation and adaptation. Leading ‘by example’ and demonstrating the extent of action that it is possible to deliver, cities have aspired to raise the ambition of national and international climate governance and put action into practice via a growing number of ‘climate change experiments’ delivered on the ground. Yet accounts of the potential of cities in global environmental governance have often stopped short of a systematic valuation of the nature and impact of the networked dimension of this action. This article addresses this by assessing the nature, and challenges faced by, urban climate governance in the post‐Paris era, focusing on the ‘experimentation’ undertaken in cities and the city networks shaping this type of governance. First, we unpack the concept of ‘urban climate change experimentation’, the ways in which it is networked, and the forces driving it. In the second and third parts of the article, we discuss two main pitfalls of networked urban experimentation in its current form, focusing on issues of scaling experiments and the nature of experimentation. We call for increased attention to ‘scaling up’ experiments beyond urban levels of governance, and to transformative experimentation with governance and politics by and in cities. Finally, we consider how these pitfalls allow us to weigh the potential of urban climate ambition, and consider the pathways available for supporting urban climate change experimentation.
In the new millennium, cities have become an emerging force among new forms of subnational climate governance. Of interest is how cities act unilaterally and directly in this new climate politics via the provision of relevant tools. Since metropolitan planning strategies have been considered as important mechanisms for achieving urban sustainability in this period, this research has sought to investigate the importance of these master plans in the delivery of urban responses to climate change. For this purpose, the study has employed a qualitative research methodology with the application of a comparative case study and the progression of a conceptual framework for evaluating climate policies in metropolitan plans of two selected cities—London and Melbourne. The study's results suggest that both the ‘London Plan’ and ‘Plan Melbourne’ incorporate critical elements to enhance climate governance, including the promotion of coordination principles, innovative technologies, a participatory planning approach and a long‐term planning scale. However, the review identified a consistent omission of key principles as identified through the proposed matrix for analysing the climate policies of a city's government, which include risk assessment tools, monitoring systems, distribution, impact frame and accountability. Moreover, the research also revealed the lack of vertical integration in policy formulation and implementation of ‘Plan Melbourne’. Our study suggests that a city's governance structure influences the way it undertakes its climate actions and the potential efficacy of these on a metropolitan scale.
This article analyses the formation of a new global network, the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy (GCoM), by two existing initiatives, the EU-based Covenant of Mayors and the UN-supported Compact of Mayors. While this merger of two transnational networks provides evidence for the increased coordination and standardisation of transnational municipal climate action, this remains a contentious and incomplete process. The article identifies different modes of transnational climate governance that have contributed to conflict between the founding networks and zooms in on the role of municipal climate data. Using empirical evidence, it analyses the contested politics of municipal climate data, including the role of the Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventories (GPC) as a standard tool, the definition of a common target, and the inclusion of financial actors. Concerns over the reshaping of public-private boundaries and the possible commodification of public data are identified as major obstacles for the (EU) Covenant of Mayors, which consequentially seeks to remain as independent as possible within the new GCoM. Data politics emerges as a crucial factor for the future direction of transnational municipal climate policy and the ongoing processes of standardisation and coordination.
The environmental movement may be “the most comprehensive and influential movement of our time” (Castells 1997: 67), representing for the ‘post-industrial’ age what the workers’ movement was for the industrial period. Yet while strike statistics have been collected for many countries since the late nineteenth century (van der Velden 2007),1 until the present no administrative body tracks the occurrence and frequency of mobilizations or protests related to environmental issues at the global scale, in the way that the World Labour Organization tracks the occurrence of strike action.2 Thus until the present it has been impossible to properly document the prevalence and incidence of contentious activity related to environmental issues or to track the ebb and flow of protest activity. Such an exercise is necessary because if the twentieth century has been the one of workers struggles, the twenty-first century could well be the one of environmentalists. This Special Feature presents the results from such an exercise—The Global Atlas of Environmental Justice—a unique global inventory of cases of socio-environmental conflicts built through a collaborative process between academics and activist groups which includes both qualitative and quantitative data on thousands of conflictive projects as well as on the social response.
This Special Feature applies the lenses of political ecology and ecological economics to unpack and understand these socio-environmental conflicts, otherwise known as ‘ecological distribution conflicts’, (hereafter EDCs, Martinez-Alier 1995, 2002). The contributions in this special feature explore the why, what, how and who of these contentious processes within a new comparative political ecology.
The articles in this special issue underline the need for a politicization of socio-environmental debates, whereby political refers to the struggle over the kinds of worlds the people want to create and the types of ecologies they want to live in. We put the focus on who gains and who loses in ecological processes arguing that these issues need to be at the center of sustainability science. Secondly, we demonstrate how environmental justice groups and movements coming out of those conflicts play a fundamental role in redefining and promoting sustainability. We contend that protests are not disruptions to smooth governance that need to be managed and resolved, but that they express grievances as well as aspirations and demands and in this way may serve as potent forces that can lead to the transformation towards sustainability of our economies, societies and ecologies.
The articles in this collection contribute to a core question of sustainability science—why and through what political, social and economic processes some are denied the right to a safe environment, and how to support the necessary social and political transformation to enact environmental justice.
The Paris Agreement aims to limit global mean temperature rise this century to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels. This target has wide-ranging implications for Europe and its cities, which are the source of substantial greenhouse gas emissions. This paper reports the state of local planning for climate change by collecting and analysing information about local climate mitigation and adaptation plans across 885 urban areas of the EU-28. A typology and framework for analysis was developed that classifies local climate plans in terms of their alignment with spatial (local, national and international) and other climate related policies. Out of eight types of local climate plans identified in total we document three types of stand-alone local climate plans classified as type A1 (autonomously produced plans), A2 (plans produced to comply with national regulations) or A3 (plans developed for international climate networks). There is wide variation among countries in the prevalence of local climate plans, with generally more plans developed by central and northern European cities. Approximately 66% of EU cities have a type A1, A2, or A3 mitigation plan, 26% an adaptation plan, and 17% a joint adaptation and mitigation plan, while about 33% lack any form of stand-alone local climate plan (i.e. what we classify as A1, A2, A3 plans). Mitigation plans are more numerous than adaptation plans, but planning for mitigation does not always precede planning for adaptation. Our analysis reveals that city size, national legislation, and international networks can influence the development of local climate plans. We found that size does matter as about 80% of the cities with above 500,000 inhabitants have a comprehensive and stand-alone mitigation and/or an adaptation plan (A1). Cities in four countries with national climate legislation (A2), i.e. Denmark, France, Slovakia and the United Kingdom, are nearly twice as likely to produce local mitigation plans, and five times more likely to produce local adaptation plans, compared to cities in countries without such legislation. A1 and A2 mitigation plans are particularly numerous in Denmark, Poland, Germany, and Finland; while A1 and A2 adaptation plans are prevalent in Denmark, Finland, UK and France. The integration of adaptation and mitigation is country-specific and can mainly be observed in two countries where local climate plans are compulsory, i.e. France and the UK. Finally, local climate plans produced for international climate networks (A3) are mostly found in the many countries where autonomous (type A1) plans are less common. This is the most comprehensive analysis of local climate planning to date. The findings are of international importance as they will inform and support decision-making towards climate planning and policy development at national, EU and global level being based on the most comprehensive and up-to-date knowledge of local climate planning available to date.
In recent years, urban pluvial flooding caused by extreme rainfall has increasingly occurred across China. This paper reviews the challenges faced by China in addressing urban pluvial flooding and managing urban storm-water, with a particular focus on a policy initiative termed sponge cities. The paper first synthetically presents pluvial flood disasters in urbanized areas, and analyses their causes and formation mechanisms. It then introduces China's sponge cities initiative and discusses policy implementation in relation to contemporary understanding of sustainable urban stormwater management and international experience with innovative practices. The initiative, while theoretically well grounded and appropriate by its design principles, is shown subject to diverse implementation challenges, ranging from technological complexity to limited or lack of governance capacity as reflected in management ideology, knowledge and capacity of learning, participatory and integrated governance, investment financing, implementation pathway, planning and organization, and project evaluation. The paper offers some strategies for addressing those challenges, which include: 1) continuous experiment-based deep learning through pilot and institutionalization of knowledge and information management with city-to-city peering learning mechanisms, 2) establishment of institutional mechanisms dedicated to participatory, coordinated and integrated governance of the policy initiative, 3) increased government role in creating favorable conditions for investments, and 4) appropriate planning and an adaptive approach to policy implementation. The paper concludes that the sponge cities initiative can be an effective approach only if China commits to appropriate technical, governance, financial, and organizational measures to effectively address the challenges for policy implementation.
Cities offer unique strategies to reduce fossil fuel use through the exchange of energy and materials across homes, businesses, infrastructure and industries co-located in urban areas. However, the large-scale impact of such strategies has not been quantified. Using new models and data sets representing 637 Chinese cities, we find that such cross-sectoral strategies—enabled by compact urban design and circular economy policies—contribute an additional 15%–36% to national CO2 mitigation, compared to conventional single-sector strategies. As a co-benefit, ~25,500 to ~57,500 deaths annually are avoided from air pollution reduction. The benefits are highly variable across cities, ranging from <1%–37% for CO2 emission reduction and <1%–47% for avoided premature deaths. These results, using multi-scale, multi-sector physical systems modelling, identify cities with high carbon and health co-benefit potential and show that urban–industrial symbiosis is a significant carbon mitigation strategy, achievable with a combination of existing and advanced technologies in diverse city types.
To address challenges associated with climate resilience, health and well-being in urban areas, current policy platforms are shifting their focus from ecosystem-based to nature-based solutions (NBS), broadly defined as solutions to societal challenges that are inspired and supported by nature. NBS result in the provision of co-benefits, such as the improvement of place attractiveness, of health and quality of life, and creation of green jobs. Few frameworks exist for acknowledging and assessing the value of such co-benefits of NBS and to guide cross-sectoral project and policy design and implementation. In this paper, we firstly developed a holistic framework for assessing co-benefits (and costs) of NBS across elements of socio-cultural and socioeconomic systems, biodiversity , ecosystems and climate. The framework was guided by a review of over 1700 documents from science and practice within and across 10 societal challenges relevant to cities globally. We found that NBS can have environmental, social and economic co-benefits and/or costs both within and across these 10 societal challenges. On that base, we develop and propose a seven-stage process for situating co-benefit assessment within policy and project implementation. The seven stages include: 1) identify problem or opportunity; 2) select and assess NBS and related actions; 3) design NBS implementation processes; 4) implement NBS; 5) frequently engage stake-holders and communicate co-benefits; 6) transfer and upscale NBS; and 7) monitor and evaluate co-benefits across all stages. We conclude that the developed framework together with the seven-stage co-benefit assessment process represent a valuable tool for guiding thinking and identifying the multiple values of NBS implementation .
Urban areas account for the majority of global greenhouse gas emissions, and increasingly, it is city governments that are adopting and implementing climate mitigation policies. Many municipal governments have joined two different global city networks that aim to promote climate policy development at the urban scale, and there is qualitative evidence that such networks play an important role in motivating cities to adopt climate policies and helping them to implement them. Our study objective is to test this proposition quantitatively, making use of a global database on cities’ environmental policy adoption, and also taking into account a large number of other factors that could play a role in climate policy adoption. Controlling for these other factors, we find that network membership does make a significant difference in the number of different measures that city governments adopt. We also find that there are significant differences between the two different networks, suggesting that the nature of the services that such networks offer their members can play an important role. Our findings lead to the provision of a set of global mitigation strategies: First of all, joining the city networks can lead to a generation of global strategies which can result into climate mitigation benefits. However, cities are required to select the network which provides proper tailor made policies. Second, in the absence of concrete international commitments at the local level, city networks lay the ground for global governance and enable cities to adopt policies independently and proactively. Third, consideration of co-benefits of climate policies can optimize the development of global strategies.
This article begins with a review and synthesis of some of the key theories, scholars, case examples, debates, methods, and (multiple) interpretations of environmental justice (EJ), as well as its expansion and globalization. We then look to some newly emerging themes, actions, and strategies for EJ and just sustainabilities. First, we look at the practices and materials of everyday life, illustrated by food and energy movements; second, the ongoing work on community and the importance of identity and attachment, informed by urban planning, food, and climate concerns; third, the growing interest in the relationship between human practices and communities and nonhuman nature. We also expand on the longstanding interest in just sustainabilities within this movement, illustrated by a wide range of concerns with food, energy, and climate justice. These new areas of work illustrate both recent developments and a set of paths forward for both the theory and practice of EJ. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Environment and Resources Volume 41 is October 17, 2016. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/catalog/pubdates.aspx for revised estimates.
ABSTRACT. Nature-based solutions promoting green and blue urban areas have significant potential to decrease the vulnerability and enhance the resilience of cities in light of climatic change. They can thereby help to mitigate climate change-induced impacts and serve as proactive adaptation options for municipalities. We explore the various contexts in which nature-based solutions are relevant for climate mitigation and adaptation in urban areas, identify indicators for assessing the effectiveness of nature-based solutions and related knowledge gaps. In addition, we explore existing barriers and potential opportunities for increasing the scale and effectiveness of nature-based solution implementation. The results were derived from an inter-and transdisciplinary workshop with experts from research, municipalities, policy, and society. As an outcome of the workshop discussions and building on existing evidence, we highlight three main needs for future science and policy agendas when dealing with nature-based solutions: (i) produce stronger evidence on nature-based solutions for climate change adaptation and mitigation and raise awareness by increasing implementation; (ii) adapt for governance challenges in implementing nature-based solutions by using reflexive approaches, which implies bringing together new networks of society, nature-based solution ambassadors, and practitioners; (iii) consider socio-environmental justice and social cohesion when implementing nature-based solutions by using integrated governance approaches that take into account an integrative and transdisciplinary participation of diverse actors. Taking these needs into account, nature-based solutions can serve as climate mitigation and adaptation tools that produce additional cobenefits for societal well-being, thereby serving as strong investment options for sustainable urban planning.
One of the causes of the increasing number of ecological distribution conflicts around the world is the changing metabolism of the economy in terms of growing flows of energy and materials. There are conflicts on resource extraction, transport and waste disposal. Therefore, there are many local complaints, as shown in the Atlas of Environmental Justice (EJatlas) and other inventories. And not only complaints; there are also many successful examples of stopping projects and developing alternatives, testifying to the existence of a rural and urban global movement for environmental justice. Moreover, since the 1980s and 1990s, this movement has developed a set of concepts and campaign slogans to describe and intervene in such conflicts. They include environmental racism, popular epidemiology, the environmentalism of the poor and the indigenous, biopiracy, tree plantations are not forests, the ecological debt, climate justice, food sovereignty, land grabbing and water justice, among other concepts. These terms were born from socio-environmental activism, but sometimes they have also been taken up by academic political ecologists and ecological economists who, for their part, have contributed other concepts to the global environmental justice movement, such as ‘ecologically unequal exchange’ or the ‘ecological footprint’.
Despite the proliferation and promise of subnational climate initiatives, the institutional architecture of transnational municipal networks (TMNs) is not well understood. With a view to close this research gap, the article empirically assesses the assumption that TMNs are a viable substitute for ambitious international action under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It addresses the aggregate phenomenon in terms of geographical distribution, central players, mitigation ambition and monitoring provisions. Examining thirteen networks, it finds that membership in TMNs is skewed toward Europe and North America while countries from the Global South are underrepresented; that only a minority of networks commit to quantified emission reductions and that these are not more ambitious than Parties to the UNFCCC; and finally that the monitoring provisions are fairly limited. In sum, the article shows that transnational municipal networks are not (yet) the representative, ambitious and transparent player they are thought to be.
The 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris (COP21) highlighted the importance of cities to climate action, as well as the unjust burdens borne by the world's most disadvantaged peoples in addressing climate impacts. Few studies have documented the barriers to redressing the drivers of social vulnerability as part of urban local climate change adaptation efforts, or evaluated how emerging adaptation plans impact marginalized groups. Here, we present a roadmap to reorient research on the social dimensions of urban climate adaptation around four issues of equity and justice: (1) broadening participation in adaptation planning; (2) expanding adaptation to rapidly growing cities and those with low financial or institutional capacity; (3) adopting a multilevel and multi-scalar approach to adaptation planning; and (4) integrating justice into infrastructure and urban design processes. Responding to these empirical and theoretical research needs is the first step towards identifying pathways to more transformative adaptation policies.
Cities are central to the fight against climate change, but the IPCC recently noted that many cities — and particularly those in the developing world — lack the institutional, financial and technical capacities needed to switch to low emission development paths. Based on detailed case studies of three Asian cities, this paper finds that the adoption of low emission development strategies (LEDS) at the urban level could be economically attractive. However, it also argues that without a coordinated multi-level, cross-sectoral governance framework these opportunities for low carbon urban development are likely to be left unexploited. As these governance conditions are frequently not in place, we argue that these case study cities, and cities in similar contexts, are likely to miss even the economically attractive low carbon development opportunities and become increasingly locked in to higher cost, higher carbon development paths. Due to their growing size and importance, we conclude that the presence or absence of governance arrangements that enable the adoption of low carbon development strategies in Asian cities will have global implications for climate change.
Urban agriculture is increasingly recognized for its potential contribution to more sustainable urban development. Urban agriculture includes the cultivation and raising, processing and marketing of food and non-food crops, medicinal and aromatic herbs, fruit trees, as well as animal products within urban and periurban areas. Urban agriculture positively impacts urban food security, local economic development, environmental management and community building. To reconcile the demands posed by urban growth with urban agriculture activities of high social and economic value, urban agriculture however should be included into land use planning and design, and regulated by municipalities, assuring its proper management and avoiding potential health and environmental risks. Open and green urban spaces could be designed for multifunctional urban agriculture and combine natural habitat, food production, educational, recreational and leisure activities. Such design processes would benefit from broad participation of urban planners and architects, urban farmers, citizens and slum inhabitants as to enhance ownership and engagement, more effectively use available local resources and give the process a higher credibility and wider outreach. This article shares the experience of Rosario, Argentina where the city planners and University staff collaborated with two low-income communities in the design and implementation of a multifunctional neighborhood park, public square and road reserve. A step-by-step participatory design process was followed: starting from initial visioning, defining and relating the various existing and multi-functional land uses desired, to elaborating the site plan, and agreeing on implementation procedures. The article briefly contextualizes the site and its inhabitants, illustrates the design process and the results achieved and highlights some of the problems encountered. Participatory design of open spaces for urban agriculture in Rosario- though a complex process- proved to have contributed to improving socio-economic and environmental conditions in the city, while also serving as a source of inspiration to other cities in the region.
A post-2015 climate agreement will require systematic approaches for tracking adaptation progress across Parties to the UNFCC. A number of steps need to be taken to improve adaptation measurement and reporting.
Ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) measures have been increasingly promoted in the literature, as well as in policies and practices, for their environmental and socioeconomic co-benefits. The recent scientific literature has shown a growing interest to assess climate adaptation plans at the urban level, in recognition of the important role played by urban areas in addressing climate change challenges. However, little information is available on the combination of these two issues, i.e., the actual inclusion of EbA measures in climate adaptation plans at the urban level. This paper addresses this gap by developing a framework to analyze the treatment of EbA in urban level climate planning, and apply it to a sample of climate adaptation plans in Europe. The framework consists of a classification of EbA measures, and a scoring system to evaluate how well they are reflected in different components of the plans. The results suggest that there is in general good awareness in plans of EbA measures, and of their potential role in addressing climate change challenges. However, their treatment in climate adaptation plans at the urban level often lacks sufficient baseline information, as well as convincing implementation actions. The paper concludes by offering recommendations to improve future practice, in terms of enhancing the baseline information to improve the proposal and design of EbA measures, improving the treatment of co-benefits associated to EbA measures, and strengthening coordination with other planning tools. Possible future development of this works include the integration of the proposed EbA classification, and the analysis of a larger sample of territorial plans.
Problem, research strategy, and findings: Cities are increasingly experiencing the effects of climate change and taking steps to adapt to current and future natural hazard risks. Research on these efforts has identified numerous barriers to climate adaptation planning, but has not yet systematically evaluated the relative importance of different constraints for a large number of diverse cities. We draw on responses from 156 U.S. cities that participated in a 2011 global survey on local adaptation planning, 60% of which are planning for climate change. We use logistic regression analysis to assess the significance of 13 indicators measuring political leadership, fiscal and administrative resources, ability to obtain and communicate climate information, and state policies in predicting the status of adaptation planning. In keeping with the literature, we find that greater local elected officials commitment, higher municipal expenditures per capita, and an awareness that the climate is already changing are associated with cities engaging in adaptation planning. The presence of state policies on climate adaptation is surprisingly not a statistically significant predictor, suggesting that current policies are not yet strong enough to increase local adaptation planning. However, the model's sampling bias toward larger and more environmentally progressive cities may mask the predictive power of state policies and other indicators.Takeaway for practice: State governments have an opportunity to increase local political commitment by integrating requirements for climate-risk evaluations into existing funding streams and investment plans. Regional planning entities also can help overcome the lack of local fiscal capacity and political support by facilitating the exchange of information, pooling and channeling resources, and providing technical assistance to local planners.
Over the last decade, a growing body of academic literature has reflected on how and under which conditions experiments in global climate governance lead to broader changes in rules, norms, and practices helping to meet the challenge of climate change. Drawing on the assumptions of the scholarship on experimentalist governance architectures, this article analyzes the effectiveness of the Covenant of Mayors (CoM) as a comprehensive governance framework that enables the development and coordination of local policies for sustainable energy and climate through a range of joint instruments for recursive goal setting, monitoring, and benchmarking. Our findings illustrate the CoM’s significant potential in terms of both general political uptake and policy output, which could make of this program, if appropriately fine-tuned, a successful governance experiment contributing to building a more effective global climate regime.
“Ciudades en la lucha contra el cambio climático”, en Giles Carnero, Rosa (coord.): Desafíos de la acción jurídica internacional y europea frente al cambio climático. Editorial Atelier. Libros jurídicos, pp. 87-97 (2018).
The Paris Agreement and Katowice Climate Package articulate a clear mandate for all parties to undertake and document adaptation progress. Yet persistent challenges have prevented substantive developments in tracking adaptation and the assessment of adaptation actions and their outcomes. Here, we provide an overview of the challenges of adaptation tracking and propose a comprehensive conceptual framework for assessing adaptation progress by governments that is scalable over time and across contexts. The framework addresses the core components of adaptation assessment (vulnerability, goals and targets, adaptation efforts, and adaptation results) and characterizes subcomponents focused on adaptation effort (leadership, organizations and policy). In particular, we highlight how critical insights can be uncovered by systematically tracking policy efforts over time, and discusses novel approaches to data collection.
Reducing pollutant emissions while ensuring a stable economic growth is an important embodiment of sustainable development. Based on the “National Comprehensive demonstration of Energy Saving and Emission Reduction Fiscal Policy” (“ESER” policy) proposed by the Chinese government in 2011, this paper analyzes the impact of such policy on emissions reduction and economic growth. Under the framework of Differences-in-differences (DID) method, this paper first identifies the implementation conditions of “ESER” policy. Then we adopt three specifications to control the endogenous problem for the selection of demonstration cities. The robustness test verifies the reliability of our findings, and the spillover effect analysis reveals the deficiency of this policy. We reach the following conclusions: (1) Different from the previous studies, we find that the “ESER” policy can effectively reduce the pollutant emissions while ensuring a stable economic growth. (2) However, the event study reveals that the reduction effect is only existing in the demonstration period, which means that this policy is not sustainable. (3) Furthermore, we find no spillover effect of “ESER” policy on the non-policy targeted pollutant, suggesting that the local government only cares about the reduction of policy targeted pollutants. Based on these findings, we propose that the future energy saving and emissions reduction policy formulation should focus on the policy sustainability and overall environmental performance.
Non-state and subnational climate actors have become central to global climate change governance. Quantitatively assessing climate mitigation undertaken by these entities is critical to understand the credibility of this trend. In this Perspective, we make recommendations regarding five main areas of research and methodological development related to evaluating non-state and subnational climate actions: defining clear boundaries and terminology; use of common methodologies to aggregate and assess non-state and subnational contributions; systematically dealing with issues of overlap; estimating the likelihood of implementation; and addressing data gaps.
The recent upsurge of interest in the experimental city as an arena within and through which urban sustainability is governed marks not only the emergence of the proliferation of forms of experimentation – from novel governance arrangements to demonstration projects, transition management processes to grassroots innovations – but also an increasing sensibility amongst the research community that urban interventions can be considered in experimental terms. Yet as research has progressed, it has become clear that experimentation is not a singular phenomenon that can be readily understood using any one conceptual entry point. In this paper, we focus on one particular mode of experimentation – the urban living laboratory (ULL) – and develop a typology through which to undertake a comparative analysis of 40 European ULLs, to understand how and why such forms of experimentation are being designed and implemented, and to identify the particular forms of experimentation they entail. We argue that there are distinct types of ULL taking shape, delimited by the ways in which they are designed and deployed through, on the one hand, specific kinds of configuration and practice and, on the other hand, by the ways in which they take laboratory form: the different dispositions towards the laboratory they entail. We propose three ‘ideal’ ULL types – strategic, civic and organic – and argue that these can be placed along the spectrum of four dispositions: trial, enclave, demonstration and platform.
To be poor, working-class, or a person of color in the United States often means bearing a disproportionate share of the country’s environmental problems. Starting with the premise that all Americans have a basic right to live in a healthy environment, Dumping in Dixie chronicles the efforts of five African American communities, empowered by the civil rights movement, to link environmentalism with issues of social justice. In the third edition, Bullard speaks to us from the front lines of the environmental justice movement about new developments in environmental racism, different organizing strategies, and success stories in the struggle for environmental equity.
Cambridge Core - Environmental Law - Governing Climate Change - by Jolene Lin
Presents a unifying set of empirically based theories that seek to explain the experience of perceived toxic exposure for individuals, families, and communities. Impacts to lifestyle, lifescape, and emotion, as well as social and societal dynamics are explored. Given the myriad fears and dangers associated with residential toxic exposure, it is surprising that until now no comprehensive examination of the social dynamics of exposure has been available. In Contaminated Communities, Michael R. Edelstein provides a foundation for understanding complex responses to incidents of toxic contamination-responses of the public, government agencies, members of the helping professions, and victims themselves. Drawing upon social psychological theory and an extensive survey of documented cases of toxic exposure, enlivened by excerpts drawn from more than a thousand interviews with victims, the author presents a candid and moving portrayal of the toxic victim's experience and the key stages in the course of toxic disaster. Of particular value is Edelstein's analysis of the effects of toxic exposure on life-style and on cognition, in which he explains how individuals' perceptions of themselves, their families, their community, the environment, and their government gradually change after exposure. The analysis provides both a descriptive and a theoretical framework for interpreting individual, family, community, and societal dynamics and their mutual influences and important insights into the culture of contamination. An outstanding example of "action research," this book seeks to improve our understanding of the threat of toxic disaster as a means of enhancing our ability to respond effectively.In the second edition to this groundbreaking text, the author updates and supplements the existing material with hundreds of new citations and an greatly expanded bibliography.
The global city has been both a product and driver of contemporary globalization. But today the global city is under threat from at least two directions. Firstly, despite their astonishing economic growth over the last four decades, they have become deeply divided and polarized in ways that threaten the integrity of the urban fabric. The second source of threat comes from the weakening of liberal world order. This article argues that global cities are at a point of crisis, because they embody an unstable form of global market society. In order to survive in a ‘global’ form, they will need to evolve by repurposing some of the political, economic and governance capacities that they have been developing over the last four decades. The article asks: what capacities and capabilities have global cities generated, and how might they be reoriented in the creation of alternative global city futures?
Cities and urban areas are increasingly recognized as strategic arenas for climate change action. Processes of urban governance addressing climate change reconfigure the politics of climate change. Practitioners and scholars may be interested in the transformation of urban governance that follows global advances in climate change and urban policy. They may specifically be interested in how the urban governance of climate change is achieved and with what consequences for international development. This review evaluates the deep changes in urban governance that follow attempts to address climate change and how, in turn, attempts to govern climate change in urban areas reconfigure discourses informing the politics of climate change. The review shows that efforts to institutionalize climate change governance in urban areas reflect the conditions of specific contexts; that cities and sub-national entities have gained traction in international climate policy through heterogeneous forms of network governance; that governing climate change in urban areas relates to the production and deployment of new climate rationalities, or governmentalities; and that governing experiences in cities are reconfiguring discourses of climate change governance toward an increasing emphasis on experimentation as a means to deal with the open ended processes of governing urban areas.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has been actively promoting comprehensive policy measures to reduce carbon emissions from non-residential buildings. Among them, the Tokyo Cap-and-Trade Program (TCTP), implemented since 2010, is an important measure to accelerate the building sector’s emission reduction to achieve Tokyo’s greenhouse gas target, 25% reduction by 2020 from a year 2000 baseline level. Under TCTP, all large commercial and industrial facilities are required to achieve the 25% reduction in two compliance periods (FY2010–14 and FY2015–19). An emission-trading scheme was established that allows building owners to purchase carbon credits to compensate for shortfalls and sell excess reductions over the obligations. This paper assesses the effectiveness of TCTP based on extensive data obtained from 1300 facilities covered by the programme and surveys among facility owners from the first compliance phase. Data indicate that TCTP has been working effectively to reduce energy consumption in participating facilities to meet the ambitious emission reduction goals, to introduce new technologies, and to raise awareness and drive behavioural changes for energy demand reduction. TCTP is examined as an alternative policy instrument to building energy codes in a portfolio of sustainable building policies, highlighting its unique capacity for driving deeper and longer-term improvements for more ambitious mitigation targets.
Adaptation planning offers a promising approach for identifying and devising solutions to address local climate change impacts. Yet there is little empirical understanding of the content and quality of these plans. We use content analysis to evaluate 44 local adaptation plans in the United States and multivariate regression to examine how plan quality varies across communities. We find that plans draw on multiple data sources to analyse future climate impacts and include a breadth of strategies. Most plans, however, fail to prioritize impacts and strategies or provide detailed implementation processes, raising concerns about whether adaptation plans will translate into on-the-ground reductions in vulnerability. Our analysis also finds that plans authored by the planning department and those that engaged elected officials in the planning process were of higher quality. The results provide important insights for practitioners, policymakers and scientists wanting to improve local climate adaptation planning and action.
The paper describes and analyses the work of Växjö to become a green city. Reduced energy use, alternative energies, alternative housing and reduced carbon dioxide emissions are all steps on the path of progress to a fossil fuel free future.
The international society's lack of leadership is often blamed for many of the shortcomings in addressing global challenges. Yet this focus might have been on the wrong kind of leaders: rather than heads of state and diplomats, effective international responses might be better situated with the ordinary influence of city leaders. While capable of reaching beyond urban politics and developing transnational networks, mayors might represent a key hinge for the effective response to important challenges like climate change or sustainability. Against this scholarly oversight, this article demonstrates how mayors have a catalytic influence in global governance. Providing evidence of that role, it summarizes this agency through five nonexclusive features: regime promotion, governance hybridization, diplomatic entrepreneurship, normative mediation, and everyday international influence. Relying on the vast variety of city-led initiatives spawned in the past few decades, this article demands greater attention for the pivotal positioning of city leaders in global governance.
Urban authorities and a range of private and civil society actors have come to view housing as a key arena in which to address climate change whilst also pursuing wider social, economic and environmental objectives. Housing has been a critical area for urban studies, but often considered in sectoral terms and work on urban responses to climate change has followed this positioning. By contrast, an Urban Political Ecology (UPE) perspective would position housing in more integrated terms as part of the metabolism of the city. Yet so far there has been relatively little written in UPE about either housing or climate change. This paper therefore seeks to bring UPE into dialogue with the emergent literature focused on governing climate change through housing. It does so through a detailed study of the ‘Retrofit Philly “Coolest Block” Contest’. We argue that this contest highlights the ways climate change is changing the way housing is embedded in the circulations of the city, pointing to changes in who is governing housing, how housing is being governed and who is able to access the benefits of (climate change-branded) action on housing.
Given that climate change is a complicated collective action problem, local governments need a comprehensive approach to tackle climate change issues. Comprehensive climate policies concern an integrated approach in planning and implementing of climate change mitigation and adaptation policies. Yet, not all local governments are actively engaged in global climate issues in a comprehensive manner. Why does local government's commitment on comprehensive climate change policy vary? This study analyzes the influences of urban climate change governance arrangements on the level of comprehensiveness in city-level climate change policies, using case studies of four cities. Urban climate change governance arrangement that includes researchers, NGO (Nongovernmental Organization) s along with public officials is a necessary factor for a city government to develop comprehensive climate policy. The case studies illustrate that cities with well-developed climate change governing organizations (Seattle and Seoul) present comprehensive climate change policy. Urban climate governance arrangements set the climate action agenda and promote implementation schemes. However, Anaheim and Busan have neither well developed urban governance arrangements nor comprehensive climate policies.