Contribution of Global Cities to Climate Change Mitigation Overrated
Local solutions to global environment challenges form part of the Martinez-Alier style of ecological economics in Barcelona. This tends to involve an optimistic assessment of the role of cities. Here, I consider this role for the case of urban policies aimed at reducing carbon emissions. There is in...
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| Tipo de recurso: | capítulo de libro |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2023 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona |
| Repositorio: | Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB |
| Idioma: | inglés |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:ddd.uab.cat:272606 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://ddd.uab.cat/record/272606 https://dx.doi.org/urn:doi:10.1007/978-3-031-22566-6_29 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | SDG 13 Climate Action |
| Sumario: | Local solutions to global environment challenges form part of the Martinez-Alier style of ecological economics in Barcelona. This tends to involve an optimistic assessment of the role of cities. Here, I consider this role for the case of urban policies aimed at reducing carbon emissions. There is indeed considerable optimism about the role of cities in global reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. I appraise recent studies and conclude that they (1) do not account for the limited reach of urban policies; (2) overplay voluntary action and underplay the importance of effective regulation; (3) disregard free riding and systemic effects like carbon leakage; and (4) lack quantitative estimates of the overall contribution of cities to emissions reduction, at best providing empirical indicators that do not connect well with urban policies. I provide an initial, tentative estimate of the upper bound to the contribution of city policies worldwide to global emissions reduction as equal to 16.8%, while realistic policies are assessed to control no more than 2%. These numbers underpin that the major part of emissions generated within city borders is outside the control of local policies, instead depending on policies set by national governments. |
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