Will climate mitigation ambitions lead to carbon neutrality? An analysis of the local-level plans of 327 cities in the EU

Abstract

Cities across the globe recognise their role in climate mitigation and are acting to reduce carbon emissions. Knowing whether cities set ambitious climate and energy targets is critical for determining their contribution towards the global 1.5°C target, partly because it helps to identify areas where further action is necessary. This paper presents a comparative analysis of the mitigation targets of 327 European cities, as declared in their local climate plans. The sample encompasses over 25% of the EU population and includes cities of all sizes across all Member States, plus the UK. The study analyses whether the type of plan, city size, membership of climate networks, and its regional location are associated with different levels of mitigation ambition. Results reveal that 78% of the cities have a GHG emissions reduction target. However, with an average target of 47%, European cities are not on track to reach the Paris Agreement: they need to roughly double their ambitions and efforts. Some cities are ambitious, e.g. 25% of our sample (81) aim to reach carbon neutrality, with the earliest target date being 2020. 90% of these cities are members of the Climate Alliance and 75% of the Covenant of Mayors. City size is the strongest predictor for carbon neutrality, whilst climate network(s) membership, combining adaptation and mitigation into a single strategy, and local motivation also play a role. The methods, data, results and analysis of this study can serve as a reference and baseline for tracking climate mitigation ambitions across European and global cities. Highlights• 78% of cities have a mitigation plan with targets (avg. 47% GHG reduction)• Only 25% of cities strive for carbon neutrality, most by 2050, avg. by 2045 • 90% of cities striving for carbon neutrality are members of a climate network • Ambition is driven by city size, climate networks, M-A combination, local motivation • European cities must double their ambitions to meet the aims set by the Paris Agreement

Ranking local climate policy: assessing the mitigation and adaptation activities of 104 German cities

“…In line with the literature, our results show that city size plays a key role in shaping local climate policy (Araos et al 2016;Haupt et al 2020;Kern et al 2005;Reckien et al 2018;Salvia et al 2021). Big cities and metropolitan areas have more capacity to develop local climate policies than smaller cities (Haupt 2020;Kern 2019;Reckien et al 2015).…”

“…2). Previous studies have sought to assess the level of adaptation and mitigation ambition using similar metrics (Woodruff and Stults 2016;Salvia et al 2021).…”

“…First, adaptation efforts often lag behind mitigation activities (Guyadeen 2019;Heidrich et al 2013;Lee et al 2020). Second, the ambitions and activities of different cities on climate issues can vary enormously, with bigger municipalities often found to be more active (Araos et al 2016;Reckien et al 2015;Salvia et al 2021). Third, the relationship between mitigation and adaptation on the ground is complex, involving not only synergies but also trade-offs and rivalry (Grafakos et al 2018(Grafakos et al , 2020Hamin and Gurran 2009;Landauer et al 2015;Sharifi 2020Sharifi , 2021.…”

“…The broad climate policy literature includes case studies of leading municipalities (e.g. Beatley 2012) and overviews of the approaches and plans of various different cities (Heidrich et al 2013;Olazabal et al 2014;Reckien et al 2014Reckien et al , 2018Salvia et al 2021), as well as rankings for either mitigation (Salvia et al 2021;Wang et al 2020) or adaptation (Araos et al 2016;). However, scholars have only recently begun to examine how mitigation and adaptation may relate to each other (Göpfert et al 2019 a;Grafakos et al 2019Grafakos et al , 2020Landauer et al 2019;Lee 2020;Pasimeni et al 2019), and, to our knowledge, there is no existing framework to rank cities on both mitigation and adaptation.…”

A Comparative Analysis of Climate Change Risk Response Perception Paths between Northern and Southern Shaanxi

“…Climate change mitigation consists of actions to limit the magnitude or rate of global warming and its related effects [6]. The main challenge is move away from coal, oil and gas and replace these fossil fuels with clean energy sources [7]. As for avoiding dangerous climate change, a study published in 2018 points at a threshold at which temperatures could rise to 4° or 5° through self-reinforcing feedbacks in the climate system, suggesting it is below the 2° temperature target [8].…”