Which are the factors influencing the integration of mitigation and adaptation in climate change plans in Latin American cities?

Abstract

As cities are major contributors to GHG emissions and places where people face multiple climate change impacts, their critical role in responding to climate change is becoming increasingly evident. Cities are developing climate change action plans (CCAPs) focusing their efforts on reducing GHG emissions and adapting to climate change impacts. Despite having the highest urban population in the world, there are a few studies on urban CCAPs in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region. This study assessed the level of integration of mitigation and adaptation (IMA) in urban climate change plans across 44 major LAC cities. The level of IMA was measured by the utilization of the IMA index, a comprehensive evaluation framework of indicators. The results showed that more than half of the examined LAC cities have a moderate level of IMA. The study further explored and statistically analyzed 42 institutional, socioeconomic and environmental factors to identify which ones potentially drive or constrain the level of IMA. Five out of 42 factors were found to have a significant impact (p-value<0.05) on the IMA index. Of the five significant factors, memberships in regional networks FLACMA and UCCI respectively, and donor agencies' contribution to the development of urban policies had a positive impact on IMA index; while the national climate fund and membership in the global network Urban LEDS had a negative impact. This suggests that cities are most likely to integrate mitigation and adaptation when the development of their CCAPs are supported by donor agencies or collaborating with other cities. The results highlight the important role of donor agencies, international organizations and cities' networks on providing the necessary capacity to cities for addressing climate change in an integrated manner.

A comparative analysis to depict underlying attributes that might determine successful implementation of local adaptation plans

“…This could be because small cities have fewer resources and are less likely to be engaged in national and international networks ( Lioubimtseva and da Cunha, 2020 ). On the other hand, other studies suggested that there is not a statistical relationship between population size and the adaptive capacity of large cities ( Filho et al, 2019 ; Kim and Grafakos, 2019 ). These results contrast with our analysis, but it should be noted that neither the dependent variable nor the characteristics of the cities are comparable with our study.…”

“… Araos et al (2016) evaluated the degree of development of adaptation measures, whereas Reckien et al (2018) explored the spatial dimension of the adaptation plans. In this line, Kim and Grafakos (2019) also analysed the level of integration of adaptation and mitigation policies in 44 Latin American cities. Other studies have analysed the adaptation strategies by focusing on the indicators and metrics ( Arnott et al, 2016 ), the resilience and adaptive capacity of the cities ( Filho et al, 2019 ; Woodruff et al, 2018 ), or by comparing resilience plans with the local adaptation plans.…”

Bright and blind spots of water research in Latin America and the Caribbean

“…The Kullback-Leibler divergence measures the expected information for discriminating between discrete probability distributions P and Q when only observing P (Kullback and Leibler, 1951):…”

“…LAC is among the most urbanized regions in the world where population densities in water-rich regions can be many times higher than arid regions, such as in Argentina. These high-density areas face particular vulnerability to water quality and supply reliability (Kim and Grafakos, 2019). For example, São Paulo faced severe water shortages during a 2014 drought, while Mexico City has steadily and rapidly depleted its groundwater supply (Aguilar-Barajas et al, 2015).…”

Can city-to-city cooperation facilitate sustainable development governance in the Global South? Lessons gleaned from seven North-South partnerships in Latin America

“…It is the second most urbanised region in the globe with 81% of population living in cities (United Nations 2018). Sustainability governance in Latin American cities is highly sensitive to the influence of international peers and donor priorities (Kim and Grafakos 2019). However, evidence is mounting that the replication of Northern cities' models in Latin America without adequate adaptation is prone to failure (e.g., Marchetti et al (2019)).…”