Local Governments and Climate Change

by Maryke van Staden

Author	: Maryke van Staden
Publisher	: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages	: 462
Release	: 2010-04-05
Genre	: Science
ISBN	: 1402095317

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Global warming is changing the world as we know it. Climate change can have catastrophic impacts in numerous cities across the world. It is time for us to react – quickly and effectively. The European Community (EC) has been leading the fight against climate change, making it one of its top priorities. We have introduced the most ambitious targets of their kind, known as the “20/20/20 by 2020” initiative within the “Climate Action and Renewable Energy Package.” As a result, European Member States have taken on a commitment to curb their CO emissions by at least 20% by 2020. 2 These targets are indeed commendable; however, they are only the start if we are to avoid the consequences of global warming. Whilst top level coordination from the European Institutions and Member State governments is vital, the role of mitigating and adapting to climate change at local level must not be forgotten. In fact, here cities, regions and their citizens play a significant a role. It is therefore vital they become directly involved in the climate change challenge. The European Commission therefore launched in 2008 a new initiative, the Covenant of Mayors, which brings together a network of European mayors in a voluntary effort to go beyond the European Union’s already ambitious targets. Half of our greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) are created in and by cities.

Local Climate Action Planning

by Michael R. Boswell

Author	: Michael R. Boswell
Publisher	: Island Press
Total Pages	: 300
Release	: 2012-07-16
Genre	: Architecture
ISBN	: 1610912012

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Climate change is a global problem, but the problem begins locally. Cities consume 75% of the world's energy and emit 80% of the world's greenhouse gases. Changing the way we build and operate our cities can have major effects on greenhouse gas emissions. Fortunately, communities across the U.S. are responding to the climate change problem by making plans that assess their contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and specify actions they will take to reduce these emissions. This is the first book designed to help planners, municipal staff and officials, citizens and others working at local levels to develop Climate Action Plans. CAPs are strategic plans that establish policies and programs for mitigating a community's greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions. They typically focus on transportation, energy use, and solid waste, and often differentiate between community-wide actions and municipal agency actions. CAPs are usually based on GHG emissions inventories, which indentify the sources of emissions from the community and quantify the amounts. Additionally, many CAPs include a section addressing adaptation-how the community will respond to the impacts of climate change on the community, such as increased flooding, extended drought, or sea level rise. With examples drawn from actual plans, Local Climate Action Planning guides preparers of CAPs through the entire plan development process, identifying the key considerations and choices that must be made in order to assure that a plan is both workable and effective.

Remarkable Cities and the Fight Against Climate Change

by JONATHAN D. ROSENBLOOM

Author	: JONATHAN D. ROSENBLOOM
Publisher	:
Total Pages	: 224
Release	: 2020-03-04
Genre	:
ISBN	: 9781585762217

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Our cities and communities face an uncertain and daunting future. Diverse challenges, including an increasingly warmer and erratic climate, losses of biodiversity, disparities in economic equality, and state and federal hostility to local action, test the survival of many communities. Paralleling these challenges is an explosion of development that will rival post-World War II land use expansion. Yet most development codes are decades old and not prepared to confront today's changes, and many local governments do not have the time or resources to research and address the myriad of changes and uncertainty they face. The Sustainability Development Code (SDC) project provides concrete ways for communities to amend development codes and adapt to new challenges as they occur. The SDC aims to help all local governments, regardless of size and budget, build more resilient, environmentally conscious, economically secure and socially equitable communities. In tandem with the SDC project, this book arms local governments with a diversity of approaches to meet the climate change challenge, focusing on actions that are traditionally within local governments' land use and development authority.

Cities and Climate Change

by OECD

Author	: OECD
Publisher	: OECD Publishing
Total Pages	: 278
Release	: 2010-11-29
Genre	:
ISBN	: 9264091378

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This book shows how city and metropolitan regional governments working in tandem with national governments can change the way we think about responding to climate change.

Choosing to Succeed

by John Nolon

Author	: John Nolon
Publisher	:
Total Pages	: 336
Release	: 2021-04-15
Genre	:
ISBN	: 9781585762293

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About the Book: Land use climate bubbles are popping up throughout the nation at an alarming rate, creating an economic crisis that will be more damaging than that of the housing bubble of 2008. The costs to ecosystems and low- and moderate-income households are equally severe. These bubbles, where land and building values are declining, provide extensive, objective evidence that climate change is real and must be dealt with on the ground. And it sidelines the ideological battles over the political response and instead requires us to focus on the practical question: what can we do to respond? Climate action seeks to avoid the harm we can't manage and to manage the harm we can't avoid. Local leaders understand the urgency of the crisis and are highly motivated to learn how to prevent and mitigate its consequences. This book describes how the local land use legal system can leverage state and local assistance to reduce per capita carbon emissions as an important and now recognized component of global efforts to manage climate change. The tools and techniques presented in the book are available to the nation's 40,000 local governments, if led by courageous leaders choosing to succeed in this epic battle. About the Author: John R. Nolon is Distinguished Professor of Law at the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University where he teaches property, land use, dispute resolution, and sustainable development law courses and is Counsel to the Law School's Land Use Law Center which he founded in 1993. He served as Adjunct Professor of land use law and policy at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies from 2001-2016.

Local Action

by Tommy Linstroth

Author	: Tommy Linstroth
Publisher	: UPNE
Total Pages	: 212
Release	: 2007
Genre	: Business & Economics
ISBN	: 9781584656722

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While traditionally framed as a national and international problem, climate change is also an important local issue. For the past fifteen years, while nations have fought over the terms of emissions reductions and the Kyoto Protocol, local governments and communities have been enacting innovative measures that not only prevent emissions of significant quantities of greenhouse gases but also reduce air pollution, save money, and improve the overall quality of life. In the absence of a serious national policy that addresses global warming, these grassroots efforts can and have made a difference. Since 1993, when fourteen pioneering local governments first began to develop programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a national and international movement has formed to fight global climate change through concerted local action. These communities are having a significant effect. A handful of jurisdictions in the United States are preventing over twenty million tons of CO2 from entering the atmosphere annually and have saved over four hundred million dollars in the process. These initiatives include greening the local building codes, creating commercial waste reduction programs, encouraging water conservation, promoting bicycling and fuel-efficient vehicles, upgrading city buildings, advocating for the use of biodiesel for municipal transportation, and designing innovative systems and policies for reduced paper use. Two in-depth case studies-- Fort Collins, Colorado, and Portland, Oregon--demonstrate how two cities have created and implemented climate-friendly and environmentally sound habitats. While most books on global warming focus on national and international implications and policy approaches or serve as guides to help individuals live in an ecologically sound manner, Linstroth and Bell provide a blueprint for local governments to follow. Combining an analysis of existing federal policy with examples of successful local policy, they provide practical examples of measures that can be implemented by communities and local governments across the United States.

Addressing the Climate Crisis

by Candice Howarth

Author	: Candice Howarth
Publisher	: Springer Nature
Total Pages	: 155
Release	: 2021-10-04
Genre	: Political Science
ISBN	: 3030797392

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This open access book brings together a collection of cutting-edge insights into how action can and is already being taken against climate change at multiple levels of our societies, amidst growing calls for transformative and inclusive climate action. In an era of increasing recognition regarding climate and ecological breakdown, this book offers hope, inspiration and analyses for multi-level climate action, spanning varied communities, places, spaces, agents and disciplines, demonstrating how the energy and dynamism of local scales are a powerful resource in turning the tide. Interconnected yet conceptually distinct, the book’s three sections span multiple levels of analysis, interrogating diverse perspectives and practices inherent to the vivid tapestry of climate action emerging locally, nationally and internationally. Delivered in collaboration with the UK’s ‘Place-Based Climate Action Network’, chapters are drawn from a wide range of authors with varying backgrounds spread across academia, policy and practice.

Local Action on Climate Change

by Susie Moloney

Author	: Susie Moloney
Publisher	: Routledge
Total Pages	: 176
Release	: 2017-08-31
Genre	: Business & Economics
ISBN	: 1134810903

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There is growing interest in analysing the role and effectiveness of the local scale in responding to the global challenge of climate change. However, while accounts of urban climate change governance are growing, there is now a real need for further conceptual and empirical work to better understand processes of change and uptake across a range of climate change actions. Local Action on Climate Change examines how local climate change responses are emerging, being operationalized and evaluated within a range of geographical and socio-political contexts across the globe. Focussing on the role and potential of local governments, non-government organisations and community groups in driving transformative change, the authors analyse how local climate change responses have emerged and explore the extent to which they are or have the potential to be innovative or transformative in terms of governance, policy and practice change. Drawing on a diverse range of case studies, including examples from Vanuatu, Japan, South Africa, Australia, Sweden, the USA and India, this volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of climate change, environmental policy and governance, and sustainability.

Cities and Climate Change

by Harriet Bulkeley

Author	: Harriet Bulkeley
Publisher	: Routledge
Total Pages	: 281
Release	: 2013-05-07
Genre	: Architecture
ISBN	: 1135130124

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Climate change is one of the most significant global challenges facing the world today. It is also a critical issue for the world’s cities. Now home to over half the world’s population, urban areas are significant sources of greenhouse gas emissions and are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Responding to climate change is a profound challenge. A variety of actors are involved in urban climate governance, with municipal governments, international organisations, and funding bodies pointing to cities as key arenas for response. This book provides the first critical introduction to these challenges, giving an overview of the science and policy of climate change at the global level and the emergence of climate change as an urban policy issue. It considers the challenges of governing climate change in the city in the context of the changing nature of urban politics, economics, society and infrastructures. It looks at how responses for mitigation and adaptation have emerged within the city, and the implications of climate change for social and environmental justice. Drawing on examples from cities in the north and south, and richly illustrated with detailed case-studies, this book will enable students to understand the potential and limits of addressing climate change at the urban level and to explore the consequences for our future cities. It will be essential reading for undergraduate students across the disciplines of geography, politics, sociology, urban studies, planning and science and technology studies.