Rethinking Sustainable Cities: Multilevel Governance and the 'Urban' Politics of Climate Change

Bulkeley, Harriet; Betsill, Michele M.

doi:10.1080/0964401042000310178

Cited by 911 publications

(570 citation statements)

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“…Carattini et al, 2015;Cole, 2015). Given the lack of progress in global climate change negotiations, an increasing number of scholars have proposed that a global policy is not the only strategy needed but that actions are required at multiple, smaller scales to start the process of climate change mitigation (Bulkeley and Betsill, 2005;Bulkeley and Kern, 2006;Ostrom, 2012). Accordingly, several studies have argued that community-based energy (CBE) organizations facilitate collective action for climate change mitigation by fostering individual behavioral change toward more sustainable energy practices (Heiskanen et al, 2010;Middlemiss, 2011Middlemiss, , 2008Seyfang, 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the links between community-based governance and sustainable energy use: Quantitative evidence from Flanders

Bauwens

Eyre

2017

Ecological Economics

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Abstract:Community-based energy organizations have been said to influence their members' energy-related behavior by activating social norms and by providing trustworthy information about sustainable energy investments and behaviors. However, little is known yet about members' actual energy use and how it differs from that of individuals who do not participate in such projects. In particular, selection effects are likely to arise, i.e. community-based energy projects may attract people that are different from the underlying population in terms of energy use. This article empirically addresses the question of the selection into community-based energy projects in terms of energy use, focusing on the case of renewable energy cooperatives. Based on quantitative data from an original survey conducted with one renewable energy cooperative in Flanders and using probit regression analyses, it contrasts a sample of cooperative members with an appropriate comparison group in terms of electricity usage. The results show that electricity consumption is positively related with cooperative membership, suggesting that high use consumers have greater incentives to join a communitybased organization which provides assistance and advice on the adoption of green technologies and energy efficiency measures. These findings contribute to an understanding of the relationship between community-based governance and sustainable energy practices.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the links between community-based governance and sustainable energy use: Quantitative evidence from Flanders

Bauwens

Eyre

2017

Ecological Economics

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“…In the European Union these discourses have been supplemented by concerns to reduce the environmental impact of cities, as well as maintaining or pursuing compact urban development, as articulated variously in the 1990 Green Paper on the Urban Environment, the Expert Group on the Urban Environment, the 1998 Sustainable Urban Development in the European Union: A Framework for Action (CEC, 1998), and most recently the development of the Thematic Strategy on the Urban Environment (CEC, 2004a) (Ward and Williams, 1997). In the United Kingdom, urban sustainability has been promoted through the rhetoric of Local Agenda 21, calls for an urban renaissance, and, in particular, through various revisions to Planning Policy Guidance which have in various ways sought to promote compact urban development (Bulkeley and Betsill, 2005).…”

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confidence: 99%

Urban Sustainability: Learning from Best Practice?

2006

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In the promotion of urban sustainability in national and international arenas, numerous initiatives and programmes have been put into place to facilitate the creation and dissemination of`best practice' (1) through which to promote policy transfer and learning. However, despite the vast array of available best practices, little is known about the ways in which best practice is constructed, used, and contested, or of its implications for urban sustainability. In this paper I argue that, rather than consider the importance of best practice in terms of the extent to which it promotes the transfer of initiatives, or processes of lesson drawing, the creation, dissemination, and use of best practice can be better understood as a discursive process, in which not only is new knowledge created about a policy problem, but the nature and interpretation of the policy problem itself are challenged and reframed (Hajer, 1995;Owens and Cowell, 2002;Owens and Rayner, 1999). Drawing on insights from literatures on governmentality, I argue that best practice represents at once a political rationality and a governmental technology through which networks and coalitions seek to promote particular urban futures. However, in practice, the abstractions of best practice become enmeshed in the particularities of the places from which they are derived, and in political struggles over urban sustainability in the locales where best practice is deployed. Although such processes impede the translation and incorporation of local knowledges into political rationalities shaping the norms and rules of urban sustainability (Murdoch, 2000), they point to the

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“…Indeed, a growing number of cities have begun to add GHG emission targets to city policy objectives and many are working together in transnational networks to strengthen emissions reduction efforts (Bintliff et al, 2007;Bulkeley and Betsill, 2005;Betsill and Bulkeley, 2007;C40 Cities, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Capturing spatial effects, technology interactions, and uncertainty in urban energy and carbon models: Retrofitting newcastle as a case-study

Keirstead

Calderón

2012

Energy Policy

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Local authorities often rely upon urban energy and carbon modelling tools to develop mitigation policies and strategies that will deliver reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. In this paper the UK example of Newcastle-uponTyne is used to critique current practice, noting that important features of urban energy systems are often omitted by bottom-up tools including interactions between technologies, spatial disaggregation of demand, and the ability to pursue over-arching policy goals like cost minimization. An alternative optimization-based approach is then described and applied to the Newcastle case, at the scale of both the whole city and the South Heaton district, and using Monte Carlo techniques to address policy uncertainty.The results show that this new method can help policy makers draw more robust policy conclusions, sensitive to spatial variations in energy demand and capturing the interactions between developments in the national energy system and local policy options. Further work should focus on improving our understanding of local building stocks and energy demands so as to better assess the potential of new technologies and policies.

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Rethinking Sustainable Cities: Multilevel Governance and the 'Urban' Politics of Climate Change

Cited by 911 publications

References 0 publications

Exploring the links between community-based governance and sustainable energy use: Quantitative evidence from Flanders

Exploring the links between community-based governance and sustainable energy use: Quantitative evidence from Flanders

Urban Sustainability: Learning from Best Practice?

Capturing spatial effects, technology interactions, and uncertainty in urban energy and carbon models: Retrofitting newcastle as a case-study

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