Climate change mitigation in rapidly developing cities

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report (IPCC AR5), urban areas are responsible for up to 76 percent of global energy use and generate about three-quarters of carbon emissions (Seto et al., 2014). Cities worldwide are faced with the challenge of reducing emissions while also maintaining economic growth. Because there are such large variations in per capita urban greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions—from a low of 0.5 tCO₂/capita to more than 190 tCO₂/capita—strategies to reduce urban GHG emissions will need to vary significantly. Indeed, recent research suggests that cities must diversify strategies to most effectively mitigate urban GHG emissions (Creutzig et al., 2015). Cities that have mature infrastructure including built-out road networks and established transit patterns, face different challenges for mitigation than rapidly growing cities in low- and middle-income countries, where infrastructure is not well developed, and transportation systems are not locked-in. However, rapidly growing cities also may be challenged by limited financial and governance capital, thus creating what has been called the ‘governance paradox’, where the greatest opportunities for GHG emissions reduction may be in places where institutional capacities are lowest (Seto et al., 2014).