ABSTRACT
This chapter develops a critical response to how the authors might undertake analysis of low carbon transitions in sub-Saharan African towns and cities. It seeks to reflect upon the analytical value and limits of urban transitions analysis (UTA) in understanding how Africa's 'urban revolution' will intersect with low carbon imperatives in the shadow of the growing climate crisis. The chapter explores how the potentials and deficits can be addressed by examining promising debates across urban studies and how they can help sensitize UTA to the geographies of low carbon transition across urban Africa. It offers a provocation that seeks to shift the knowledges and debates into new contexts the broader low carbon transformation of cities and explanatory frameworks for transformation. The chapter shows the need to recognize the limits of urban government and governance in terms of the capacity and knowledge to understand and reshape urban energy systems around low carbon concerns.
