Urban CO2 mitigation strategies under the Covenant of Mayors: An assessment of 124 European cities

Abstract

In 2008, the European Commission (EC) launched the Covenant of Mayors (CoM), a voluntary agreement under which local governments commit to reduce CO2 emissions by at least 20% within 2020, in order to reinforce local authorities in designing strategies to mitigate climate change in coherence with the European Union’s climate policy. The CoM may be defined as a coordinated collection of experiments based on common rules established by the EC. Cities signing the CoM commit to follow guidelines and standardized methodologies in setting CO2 emission reduction targets and in designing and implementing policies and measures to reach them, through the definition of key tools such as the Baseline Emission Inventory (BEI) and the Sustainable Energy Action Plan (SEAP). The present study analyses the emission reduction strategies of a sample of 124 cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants, signatories of the CoM, which delivered a SEAP by February 2014. More than 5500 actions planned by the sample cities were analysed and categorized. The most relevant actions in terms of recurrence and mitigation impact were assessed. Finally a set of variables was tested through a regression so as to determine their influence on emission reductions strategies.The main results of this study show that the sample cities accounted for a total of 370 million tons of CO2 emissions in selected baseline years and 94 million tons of intended emission reductions per year. The total emission reductions planned by cities reached 25% of the baseline emissions. Buildings and Transport stood out as the sectors where cities intend to deliver the largest emission reductions. Furthermore the analysis showed that cities’ administrations attribute higher potential to actions in subsectors under their direct control (municipal buildings, public transport, municipal fleet and public lighting) compared to actions in subsectors managed by private actors (households and firms). In the Building sector, the category of action delivering the highest share of CO2 emission reductions was represented by integrated actions, which combine several types of intervention so as to maximise the energy efficiency of buildings. In the transport sector, it was the modal shift, which implies a transition from private transport to public and cleaner transport modes. In both the Building and Transport sectors, cities plan to reduce the major amount of CO2 emissions through the implementation of management and organization, infrastructure construction and awareness-raising policy levers.Our results may be useful to urban policy makers to shape their mitigation strategies in coherence with cities’ commitments and plans and to replicate policies and actions on the basis of CoM signatories’ experiences.