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China has established three rounds of low-carbon pilot city initiatives. However, a gap exists between policy making and successful implementation, and the effects on greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction were found to be different among pilots. This paper considers the question of how low-carbon policies in cities can be implemented effectively and how policy combinations are adopted for GHG emissions reduction. It uses a mixed research approach, including Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) and field investigation in Pilot Y (situated in the southwest China). The results show that, first, financial support and monitoring systems are necessary conditions, while political leadership is a sufficient condition. This means that the absence of financial support or monitoring systems could lead to increased GHG emissions, while the presence of political leadership always promotes the reduction of GHG emissions but may not be sufficient on its own to achieve them. Second, the target responsibility system (TRS) – a system used by higher government levels to assess the policy implementation of lower government levels – and human resource mechanisms cannot effectively lead to the promotion of GHG emissions reduction. Finally, in the absence of TRS and human resource mechanisms, environmental information disclosure (EID) was found to effectively promote low-carbon urban development by encouraging public participation. This paper reveals the complexity of the implementation of low-carbon policies in cities, identifies the link between city-level and national action, and enriches the theoretical explanation of governance and low-carbon policy implementation gaps in China. Key policy insights China's low-carbon pilot city project is critical for reducing GHG emissions, however, the effects of the low-carbon pilot city programmes varied greatly. Financial support and monitoring systems are necessary conditions, while political leadership is a sufficient condition to achieve cities' GHG emissions reduction goals. Local low-carbon development is limited and not put into practice at the city level in China, in part because of the absence of financial support and limited political attention. This study highlights the key conditions of organizational behaviour at the meso-level, and enriches the theoretical explanation of environmental policy implementation gaps in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current and increasingly intensive technocratic drift recognises the indiscriminate power of techniques in solving several problems, including the struggle against climate change and its impact on cities. One of the future challenges concerns the effective and conscious application of KETs for the creation of smart environments in historical heritage, which plays a strategic role for its conservative values, but also in the broader strategy for limiting greenhouse gas emissions. The proposed paper reports some preliminary results of a research aimed at investigating and acknowledging these technologies as an enabling medium to undertake more informed deterministic choices in the field of CH. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Waste diversion targets are a common characteristic of municipal climate change mitigation plans because about two-thirds of residential waste sent to landfills is degradable and thus contributes to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This paper focuses on the challenge of achieving waste diversion targets in multi-residential buildings because their diversion rates are much lower than those for single-family homes. A case study of 15 high-rise condominium and cooperative housing buildings compares modes of governance by the City of Toronto and by multi-residential buildings to address waste diversion challenges. City responses to the challenges included mandatory building standards making waste diversion as convenient as garbage disposal, voluntary standards for in-suite storage of recyclables and organics, phase-in of organics collection and pay-as-you-throw collection fees, and delivery of promotion and education programs. For buildings, the responses were fines for poor-quality sorting, conversion of the garbage chute to an organics chute, the delivery of education material to residents, and monitoring bin capacity. Despite these initiatives, Toronto is very unlikely to meet its target of diverting 70% of residential waste away from disposal in landfill by 2030. Seven actions are recommended to increase the rate of diversion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although many municipalities have climate action plans with targets and goals, effective climate action still faces significant implementation gaps. Implementation can falter due to barriers for the deployment of low-carbon solutions, as well as the lack of cultural, systemic, and psychological support for such solutions. Cultural drivers and perceptions shape citizens' behaviors and can perpetuate carbon-intensive lifestyles. This paper focuses on measures in climate action planning in the Metro Vancouver region of Canada regarding transportation, which remains the largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions and has a low chance of reaching its emissions-reductions targets. Shifting towards greater sustainability will entail a challenge of transformative change, involving shifts in systems, behaviors, worldviews, and cultures. In implementation, the full complexity of the climate action challenge becomes most evident. A scoping review of climate action documentation and semi-structured interviews are used to examine (1) barriers to effective implementation, (2) socio-cultural perceptions and approaches to public engagement and (3) novel areas for transformational action. The study found a need to reweight the focus of climate action, which is predominantly set on techno-managerial efforts, also to include communication, narratives and broader systems change, which are the key barriers to low-carbon urban mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is central for climate policy to understand, monitor and forecast greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, generating insights on the key factors and actions with a greater impact to mitigate and adapt to global warming. Focusing on the leading role of cities, it is relevant to build robust and reliable GHG emissions prospects for every city committing to mitigate and adapt to climate change. In this paper, a novel methodology is proposed to build those prospects, presenting a case study with 6231 EU-27 cities and local municipalities taken from the Global Covenant of Mayors (GCoM). Key GHG emissions predictors for the target years of 2020 and 2030 refer to the baseline energy consumption and associated GHG emissions, as well as the population and the national emissions per capita trend. Additionally, other informative predictors are the baseline inventory year, the reduction target, the disaggregated baseline emissions by type of fuel (fossils or renewables), the heating and cooling degree days and the NUTS urban/rural categorization. The proposed methodology allows assessing the cities' achievements based on their expected performance, and it could be further implemented to support new cities willing to commit to a significant reduction of their GHG emissions. • A robust methodology is proposed to predict GHG emissions for cities committing to climate change mitigation and adaptation. • Key predictors refer to local, regional and national sources of information. • A case study is performed with 6231 European cities: 2030 commitments are expected to achieve a 40 % GHG emissions reduction. • The models described in this paper provide useful information to urban policy makers in the climate action planning process. • The results are replicable in the context of transnational initiatives involving cities in the fight against climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urbanisation is truly a global phenomenon. Starting at 39% in 1980, the urbanisation level rose to 52% in 2011. Ongoing rapid urbanisation has led to increase in urban greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Urban climate change risks have also increased with increase in climate-induced extreme weather events and more low-income urban dwellers living in climate sensitive locations. Despite increased emissions, including GHGs and heightened climate change vulnerability, climate mitigation and adaptation actions are rare in the cities of developing countries. Cities are overwhelmed with worsening congestion, air pollution, crime, waste management, and unemployment problems. Lack of resources and capacity constraints are other factors that discourage cities from embarking on climate change mitigation and adaptation pathways. Given the multitude of problems faced, there is simply no appetite for stand-alone urban climate change mitigation and adaptation policies and programmes. Urban mitigation and adaptation goals will have to be achieved as co-benefits of interventions targeted at solving pressing urban problems and challenges. The paper identifies administratively simple urban interventions that can help cities solve some of their pressing service delivery and urban environmental problems, while simultaneously mitigating rising urban GHG emissions and vulnerability to climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: Low carbon cities. What, exactly, are we talking about? Are we talking about lifestyles, activities, or enterprises? Are we talking about individual or group voluntary behavior change or a policy framework that seeks to encourage behavior change by regulatory force? Faced with an enormous literature that mixes related topics like sustainable development/climate change/energy conservation/low carbon, it is not surprising to hear about local governments’ or planners’ “climate change initiatives”. This paper describes/reflects on how officials in Broward County, Florida, are dealing with issues of awareness, governance, measurement, and instruments for challenges arising from the combined threats of energy depletion and climate change. The overriding objective of this paper is to provide some pith for the discussion of planning for low carbon cities. To this end, we describe and reflect on the planning management responses of Broward County, Florida, USA – as an illustrative local government – in dealing with climate change challenges (CCC), energy conservation (EC) and greenhouse gas reduction (GHG). Both description and reflection are important as it is primarily the latter that provides the critical perspective necessary for assessing both potential and effect. The paper is organized into five sections. The first two sections address the “contextual” questions raised above: what is the level of knowledge and/or awareness among the collection of planners and/or local governments; and, what are/is appropriate responses of different levels of government. In the next section, we review overall levels of knowledge and awareness of basic science and policy dimensions, with particular attention paid to (a version of the) US planning profession. This is followed by a discussion of “theoretical” prescriptions for actions at different levels of government. The third and fourth sections focus on Broward County. The third section describes the county and presents a current measurement of its carbon footprint (at least at the level to which it can be measured). The fourth section describes the operational response of Broward County government. The final section returns to the original questions of knowledge and appropriate types of responses and argues that while the Broward response is generally effective in certain aspects, the current policy paradigm contains both strengths and weaknesses, which are generally outlined and discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The realization of national climate change commitments, as agreed through international negotiations, requires local action. However, data is still insufficient to make accurate statements about the scale of urban emissions (UNHABITAT, 2011). The need of comparable emission inventories at city level, including smaller cities, is widely recognized to develop evidence-based policies accounting for the relation between emissions and institutional, socio-economic and demographic characteristics at city level. This paper presents a collection of harmonized greenhouse gases (GHG) emission inventories (the "CoM sample 2013") at municipal level directly computed by the cities and towns that participate in the EU Covenant of Mayors initiative. This is the mainstream European movement of local and regional authorities who voluntarily commit to reduce GHG emissions by 20% or more by 2020. The "CoM sample 2013" (http://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/com/data/index.php? SECURE=123, doi:10.2904/EDGARcom2013) has been carefully checked to ensure its internal consistency and its congruity with respect to internationally accepted guide values for emission factors. Overall, it provides valuable data for the analysis of the heterogeneity of final energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions of cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]