ABSTRACT
Concerns about energy security and limits on greenhouse gas emissions are leading to a new logic of what might be called ‘carbon control’ in spatial regulation (While et al. 2010). Carbon control in this sense signals the political imperative of reducing the use of fossil fuels as a first-order policy priority for governments and firms. Failure to do so carries the risk of penalties for non-compliance with carbon reduction targets, added costs arising from carbon taxes and rising energy prices, and falling behind in circuits of low carbon competitiveness. Low carbon restructuring is a concern at all levels of government, but the question addressed specifically in this chapter is what carbon control might mean for urban politics (and by extension, what urban politics might mean for low carbon transitions). For example, how might carbon management change the ways in which decision makers think about urban processes and urban policies? To what extent might a low carbon transition require new conceptions of the role of government, non-state actors and citizens, and their relationship with each other? And, not least, from the perspective of recent urban political theory, to what extent will seeing territory as a space of carbon flows reinforce or challenge dominant modes of (neo-liberal) urban management?
