Financing the Low-Carbon City: Can Local Government Leverage Public Finance to Facilitate Equitable Decarbonisation?

Abstract

As decarbonisation interventions proliferate within cities, local governments setting ambitious targets are increasingly engaged in complex financial relations. Recognising the necessary cost of renewable and energy efficient infrastructures, and the ever-present constraints on public funds, this paper argues that finance is a critical node through which local governments advance decarbonisation in urban localities. While local decarbonisation strategies have been viewed cautiously for their potential to overburden individuals at the expense of more systematic and organisational change, this paper reveals a more complex picture. Drawing on decarbonisation initiatives in two Melbourne municipalities-Moreland and Darebin-it identifies four ways in which local governments are using public finance to achieve their sustainability objectives. Local governments are brokering bulk product purchases for residents; lending upfront capital for solar PV via local property taxes; purchasing energy efficient products and funding innovative technology pilots; and procuring renewable energy supply through multi-stakeholder power purchase agreements. By targeting lower income households and pooling resources with other organisations, the paper shows that local governments can address socioeconomic inequality and facilitate extra-local change towards a low-carbon city. However, these incremental achievements emphasise the need for coordination and state engagement to realise decarbonisation at a meaningful scale.

Research on coupling coordination and influencing factors between Urban low-carbon economy efficiency and digital finance—Evidence from 100 cities in China’s Yangtze River economic belt

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Open source tools for geographic analysis in transport planning

“…With the emphasis shifting to reducing travel by building 'liveable' communities and enabling mode shift (Sallis et al 2016), localised and geographically specific considerations may become increasingly prominent in future plans. To illustrate this point, imagine being the mayor of a major city that has declared a 'climate emergency' and who has been given the task of leading the transition away from fossil fuels (Hadfield and Cook 2019). Policies such as carbon taxes would undoubtedly be needed at the national level but your focus would naturally be on the bounds of the local authority over which you have some power.…”

Energy-space concept for the transition to a low-carbon energy society

“…Renewable energy technologies for electricity generation such as solar, wind or hydro allow substitution of fossil fuels and can be used to meet energy needs in households, industrial, commercial and transport sectors. The concern on the environment, climate change and energy deprivation rose the political interest in low-carbon cities development in recent years (Griffiths & Sovacool, 2020 ; Hadfield & Cook, 2019 ; Lv et al, 2022 ). The development of low-carbon cities and the performance depend on how new innovative technologies and policy measures are applied and how successful acceptable they will be in the community (Geels et al, 2018 ).…”