From political pledges to quantitative mapping of climate mitigation plans: Comparison of two European cities
article
Background Urban agglomerates play a crucial role in reaching global climate objectives. Many cities have commit ted to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions, but current emission trends remain unverifable. Atmospheric moni toring of greenhouse gases ofers an independent and transparent strategy to measure urban emissions. However, careful design of the monitoring network is crucial to be able to monitor the most important sectors as well as adjust to rapidly changing urban landscapes. Results Our study of Paris and Munich demonstrates how climate action plans, carbon emission inventories, and urban development plans can help design optimal atmospheric monitoring networks. We show that these two European cities display widely diferent trajectories in space and time, refecting diferent emission reduction strate gies and constraints due to administrative boundaries. The projected carbon emissions rely on future actions, hence uncertain, and we demonstrate how emission reductions vary signifcantly at the sub-city level. Conclusions We conclude that quantifed individual cities’ climate actions are essential to construct more robust emissions trajectories at the city scale. Also, harmonization and compatibility of plans from various cities are neces sary to make inter-comparisons of city climate targets possible. Furthermore, dense atmospheric networks extending beyond the city limits are needed to track emission trends over the coming decades
Topics
TNO Identifier
992522
Source
Carbon Balance and Management, pp. 1-12.
Pages
1-12