Benchmarking South East European Cities with the Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems Index

Şiir Kilkiş

doi:10.13044/j.sdewes.d5.0179

Abstract

Benchmarking South East European Cities with the Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems Index

Highlights

Urban areas are responsible for about 365 EJ or 64% of global primary energy usage and are liable for 24 Gt of CO2 emissions, which correspond to about 70% of total Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from energy-related activities [1]
Additional scenarios that are in line with the Paris Agreement on Climate Change [2] require values that are well below these projected levels of increases based on a rapid process of decarbonisation using renewable energy resources
The lowest performing city, namely Zenica, is found to perform about 15.8% below average when compared to the sample average

Summary

Introduction

Urban areas are responsible for about 365 EJ or 64% of global primary energy usage and are liable for 24 Gt of CO2 emissions, which correspond to about 70% of total Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from energy-related activities [1]. Baseline scenarios predict that urban primary energy usage may soar to 618 EJ with an increase of 69% by the year 2050 [1]. Scenarios that seek to limit global warming to at most 2 °C indicate that this value may be at most 432 EJ with a maximum increase of 18% [1]. Under this scenario, the urban share in global CO2 emissions must be reduced by at least 22% that will require the elimination of 15.2 Gt CO2 from the baseline. The Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems (SDEWES) City Index was developed as an original composite indicator to benchmark city performance [3]. The aim of the research work is to present the benchmarking results for the new sample and provide steps that can be used by decision-makers in those cities to improve city performance in the future

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion