Assessing City Governance for Low-Carbon Mobility in London
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sustainability Article Assessing City Governance for Low-Carbon Mobility in London Paul Drummond UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources, Central House, London WC1H 0NN, UK; [email protected] Abstract: City-level decisions are crucial for delivering a low carbon transition, particularly as urban population dynamics and environments change in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Ensuring appropriate governance structures, mechanisms and resources to facilitate these decisions is therefore essential. Based on a systematic literature review by van der Heijden (2019), this paper develops a simple framework to assess the state of ten enabling factors for effective urban climate governance, and applies it to low-carbon passenger mobility in London. Drawing on documentary evidence and a series of semi-structured expert interviews, it finds that London’s city authorities have a strong capacity for autonomy, stakeholder participation, local leadership and coordination on climate action and mobility, of which they make extensive use. The national legal and political framework remains broadly supportive following the UK’s departure from the EU, but multi-level co-ordination is thin, and funding issues have intensified conflict over political jurisdiction since the pandemic began. Spatial variation in urban form and infrastructure, coupled with dual-layer city administration, complicate the socio-political landscape and drive for climate action in mobility. Keywords: climate change; local government; climate governance; urban transport 1. Introduction Citation: Drummond, P. Assessing Following existing nationally determined contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agree- City Governance for Low-Carbon ment, warming is projected to reach 2.6 ◦C by the end of the century, with a lack of practical Mobility in London. Sustainability implementation increasing this to 2.9 ◦C[1]. Although this represents progress, these 2021, 13, 2480. https://doi.org/ values remain well above stated goals. In the absence of sufficient action by national 10.3390/su13052480 decision makers, attention has been increasingly turning to sub-national actors to lead the low-carbon transition, and in particular, those in city governance. This sits alongside other Academic Editor: David Tyfield areas of environmental concern and human development in which city-level governance is central, such as tackling air pollution and delivering Sustainable Development Goal 11. Received: 1 February 2021 In recent years, a wide literature examining urban climate governance has emerged, Accepted: 23 February 2021 with insights across four key research themes systematically reviewed and synthesised Published: 25 February 2021 by van der Heijden (2019) [2]. One theme concerns the factors that enable effective urban climate governance, from which the author derived a list of eight primary, interacting Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral elements. This paper develops a framework to assess the state of an expanded list of with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- enabling factors in cities and applies it to London, with a focus on the transition to low- iations. carbon passenger mobility in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Section2 first presents a brief overview of the enabling factors presented by van der Heijden (2019) [2] and the wider literature, before describing the assessment framework derived from them, and the method used to apply it. Section3 presents the result of the application of this framework to low-carbon passenger mobility in London. Section4 Copyright: © 2021 by the author. concludes. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article 2. Materials and Methods distributed under the terms and 2.1. Literature Review conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// This paper draws (and expands) on eight “enabling factors” for effective urban climate creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ governance derived and synthesised by van der Heijden (2019) [2] from his review of 4.0/). 260 articles published between 2009 and 2018. These factors are briefly summarised in Sustainability 2021, 13, 2480. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13052480 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability Sustainability 2021, 13, 2480 2 of 24 2. Materials and Methods Sustainability 2021, 13, 2480 2.1. Literature Review 2 of 24 This paper draws (and expands) on eight “enabling factors” for effective urban cli- mate governance derived and synthesised by van der Heijden (2019) [2] from his review of 260 articles published between 2009 and 2018. These factors are briefly summarised in Figure1 (dark green boxes). Van der Heijden (2019) [ 2] suggests no hierarchy between Figure 1 (dark green boxes). Van der Heijden (2019) [2] suggests no hierarchy between these factors, and a lack of distinct boundaries, with close interrelation between them. He these factors, and a lack of distinct boundaries, with close interrelation between them. He also notes that they are not exhaustive. For this paper, I consider two additional factors, to also notes that they are not exhaustive. For this paper, I consider two additional factors, provide a broader foundation for analysis (light green boxes in Figure1). to provide a broader foundation for analysis (light green boxes in Figure 1). Figure 1. Expanded li listst of enabling factors for effective climate governance.governance. TThehe first first additional factor is cconduciveonducive urban form and infrastructure. The form of the urbanurban environment environment strongly strongly influences influences resource resource consumption consumption and and environmental environmental impact; impact; e.g.e.g.,, large, uni unicentriccentric ci citiesties with low population densities densities,, are likely to have a higher per capitacapita footprint footprint than than smaller, smaller, polycentric and more more densely densely populated populated cities cities—particularly—particularly with regard regard to to urban urban mobility mobility [3– [5]3–.5 Inherited]. Inherited infrastructure infrastructure such such as metro as metro lines and lines pave- and mentspavements,, or their or absence, their absence, may also may raise also or raisereduce or hurdles reduce to hurdles different to behaviours different behaviours.. The form ofThe a city form may of athus city shape may thusthe challenge shape the it challenge faces to deliver it faces decarbonis to deliveration, decarbonisation, and mediate and the transitionmediate the to transitionachieve it [6] to. achieve The second it [6]. addit Theional second factor additional is societal factor pressure is societal; if the pressure city pop-; if ulationthe city is population in favour isof in climate favour action, of climate measures action, are measures more likely are more to be likely proposed to be proposedand suc- cessfullyand successfully introduced. introduced. This factor This factorwas wasused usedby byvan van der der Heijden, Heijden, Luckmann Luckmann and CherkashevaCherkasheva—in—in addition addition to to the the original eight eight—to—to guide their assessment of the state of urbanurban climate governance in Moscow and S Saintaint Petersburg [[7]7].. FrameworksFrameworks for for assessing the state of city city-level-level governance for other environmental concernsconcerns (such (such as as water and waste), for assessing particular strategies for urban climate action,action, or forfor climateclimate change change adaptation adaptation and and resilience, resilience, have have all all been been developed developed and and applied ap- in the literature (e.g., [8–10]). However, a framework to assess the broad state of urban plied in the literature (e.g., [8–10]). However, a framework to assess the broad state of governance for greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation, building on a thorough assessment of critical factors, has yet to be developed. Sustainability 2021, 13, 2480 3 of 24 2.2. Assessment Framework The assessment framework developed and employed by this paper qualitatively scores each of the ten enabling factors presented above, through two inter-related lenses. The first lens assesses the Capacity of a city to take advantage of the enabling factors, and reflects circumstances both within and outside its control. The second lens assesses the extent to which Action has been taken by city authorities to exploit this capacity to drive the transition. Each enabling factor is awarded a Capacity score using a straight-forward four point scale of “weak”, “moderately weak”, “moderately strong” and “strong”, following Sovacool and Van de Graaf [11]. Seven of the ten factors are also provided an Action score with the same scale, with the remaining three—Supportive political and legal context, Conducive urban form and infrastructure and Societal pressure—considered contextual factors, within which the city authorities must operate but cannot easily influence or adjust (at least in the short term). Assigning an Action score to these factors would thus not be appropriate. Table1 presents the broad criteria applicable to the scores for each lens, for each factor. Table 1. Score descriptors for enabling factors and assessment lenses. Moderately Enabling Factor Weak Moderately Weak Strong Strong No or limited political, policy or legal Clear political, policy and legal support Supportive Capacity political and legal support from higher levels of governance. from higher levels of governance context Action Not applicable Reasonable or extensive ability to No or limited