ABSTRACT
Mitigation – the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and their capture and storage – has been at the heart of policy responses to climate change over the past two decades. At the international level, the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has as its core objective the ‘stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system’.1 Subsequent agreements, including the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and the 2009 Copenhagen Accord, have developed targets and timetables for the international community to reduce GHG emissions.2 Many national governments have made commitments which go beyond the rather modest goals that have so far been agreed internationally. However, achieving these international and national ambitions is dependent on the implementation of policies and measures to reduce or capture GHG emissions on the ground. Cities are therefore critical places for achieving mitigation. As Chapter 3 has shown, a significant proportion of GHG emissions arise from activities undertaken in urban areas.3 Cities represent concentrations of population and economic activities, with growing demands for energy for domestic services such as heating, cooling and lighting, as well as commercial buildings, industrial processes, telecommunications systems, the provision of water, the production of waste, leisure activities, travel and so on. Cities can therefore be seen as part of the problem of climate change and
reducing GHG emissions in cities is a key policy challenge (see Table 5.1).
