Abstract
As the effects of global warming have become more evident, ambitious short-term greenhouse gas emission reduction targets have been set in recent years. Many cities worldwide have adopted an active approach to climate change mitigation, but policy makers are not always knowledgeable of the true effects of their planned mitigation action. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of different mitigation strategies in achieving low-carbon urban communities. The assessment is conducted via means of consumption based hybrid life-cycle assessment, which allows the reduction potential to be analyzed from the perspective of an individual resident of the urban community. The assessed actions represent strategies that are both adopted by the case cities and possible to implement with current best practices in Finland. The four assessed actions comprise: (1) dense urban structure with less private driving; (2) the use of energy production based on renewable sources; (3) new low-energy residential construction; and (4) improving the energy efficiency of existing buildings. The findings show that the effectiveness depends greatly on the type of city, although in absolute terms the most significant reduction potential lies with lowering the fossil fuel dependence of the local energy production.
Highlights
Already half of the world’s population resides in urban communities, which are accountable for a vast majority of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions [1]
Carbon leakage traditionally refers to the relocation of carbon intensive industries outside geographical borders, which may be calculated as an emission reduction to a certain country, even though global emissions might increase [8,9]
A dense urban structure is often seen as an effective way to reduce carbon emissions, as density tends to limit private driving and the number of passenger-kilometers, referred to as vehicle miles or kilometers traveled (VMT or vehicle kilometers traveled (VKmT)) [33,34]
Summary
Already half of the world’s population resides in urban communities, which are accountable for a vast majority of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions [1]. The role of urban carbon management is essential in attempting to mitigate climate change. Most city level GHG assessments have focused only on the direct emissions occurring within the city borders, and have failed to account for the so-called carbon leakage. Carbon leakage traditionally refers to the relocation of carbon intensive industries outside geographical borders, which may be calculated as an emission reduction to a certain country, even though global emissions might increase [8,9]. Similar carbon leakage exists between cities within one country, but this phenomenon has received less attention in the literature
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