Cities, Climate Change and Multilevel Governance
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Cities, Climate Change and Multilevel Governance J. Corfee-Morlot, L. Kamal-Chaoui, M. G. Donovan, I. Cochran, A. Robert and P.J. Teasdale JEL Classification: Q51, Q54, Q56, Q58, R00. Please cite this paper as: Corfee-Morlot, Jan, Lamia Kamal-Chaoui, Michael G. Donovan, Ian Cochran, Alexis Robert and Pierre- Jonathan Teasdale (2009), “Cities, Climate Change and Multilevel Governance”, OECD Environmental Working Papers N° 14, 2009, OECD publishing, © OECD. OECD ENVIRONMENT WORKING PAPERS This series is designed to make available to a wider readership selected studies on environmental issues prepared for use within the OECD. Authorship is usually collective, but principal authors are named. The papers are generally available only in their original language English or French with a summary in the other if available. The opinions expressed in these papers are the sole responsibility of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the OECD or the governments of its member countries. Comment on the series is welcome, and should be sent to either [email protected] or the Environment Directorate, 2, rue André Pascal, 75775 PARIS CEDEX 16, France. ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ OECD Environment Working Papers are published on www.oecd.org/env/workingpapers ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Applications for permission to reproduce or translate all or part of this material should be made to: OECD Publishing, [email protected] or by fax 33 1 45 24 99 30. Copyright OECD 2009 2 ABSTRACT Cities represent a challenge and an opportunity for climate change policy. As the hubs of economic activity, cities generate the bulk of GHG emissions and are thus important to mitigation strategies. Urban planning will shape future trends and the concentration of population, socio-economic activity, poverty and infrastructure in urban areas translates into particular vulnerability to increased climate hazards. City governments and urban stakeholders will therefore be essential in the design and delivery of cost-effective adaptation policies. Further, by empowering local governments, national policies could leverage existing local experiments, accelerate policy responses, foster resource mobilization and engage local stakeholders. This paper presents a framework for multilevel governance, showing that advancing governance of climate change across all levels of government and relevant stakeholders is crucial to avoid policy gaps between local action plans and national policy frameworks (vertical integration) and to encourage cross-scale learning between relevant departments or institutions in local and regional governments (horizontal dimension). Vertical and horizontal integration allows two-way benefits: locally-led or bottom-up where local initiatives influence national action and nationally-led or top-down where enabling frameworks empower local players. The most promising frameworks combine the two into hybrid models of policy dialogue where the lessons learnt are used to modify and fine-tune enabling frameworks and disseminated horizontally, achieving more efficient local implementation of climate strategies. Such integration generates benefits at all stages of the policy process. This includes agenda setting and strategic planning, to encourage political leadership and stakeholders' support; policy formulation and approval to promote long-term vision and near term action; local implementation to overcome obstacles, build necessary capacity, and establish reliable financing for action; feedback and evaluation; and dissemination to promote information sharing and cross-scale learning. A review of current practices suggests the need for national governments to help create a sound institutional foundation and knowledge base to support decision making and action at local levels. This includes developing harmonized GHG inventory methods for local government use, boundary organisations to generate regional science-policy or economic-policy information, and developing strong urban climate policy networks. Making such tools available will help local governments to design, implement and refine policies to find cost-effective climate policy solutions and drive economic development in green sectors. It will also help national governments to deliver on ambitious climate policy goals in the coming decades. JEL classification: Q51, Q54, Q56, Q58, R00. Keywords : Climate; Global Warming; Sustainable Development; Government Policy; Regional, Urban and Rural Analyses; Regional Economics 3 FOREWORD This report is the result of a joint project overseen by two Working Parties of the OECD: the Working Party on Territorial Policy in Urban Areas under the Territorial Development Policy Committee, and the Working Party on Global and Structural Policies under the Environment Policy Committee. It was prepared by Jan Corfee-Morlot (OECD Environment Directorate), Lamia Kamal-Chaoui, Michael G. Donovan and Alexis Robert (OECD Public Governance and Territorial Development Directorate), as well as Ian Cochran, Pierre-Jonathan Teasdale (in-house consultants to the OECD). We would also like to acknowledge assistance from Michaël Bégorre Bret in the final editing of the document and contributions from a number of authors who have contributed relevant background materials on which we have drawn liberally. Notably Adam Ostry, Chairman of the OECD Working Party on Urban Areas and Director General, Infrastructure Canada; Dale Medearis, Senior Environmental Planner, Northern Virginia Regional Commission (NVRC); Miranda Schreurs, Director of the Environmental Policy Research Centre and Professor of Comparative Politics at the Freie Universität Berlin; Stéphane Hallegatte, Centre International de Recherche sur l’Environnement et le Développement, Paris, France; and Kara Reeve, M.I.T. Department of Urban Studies and Planning. Finally the authors are those who commented on the report, including: Helen Mountford, Marcos Bonturi, Claire Charbit, Aziza Akhmouch, Shardul Agrawala and Arnoldo Matus-Kramer of the OECD; Sara Pasquier and Ralph Sims of the IEA; Mila Freire of the World Bank; Meinte de Hoogh of the Dutch government; Rene- Laurent Ballaguy and Pierre-François Clerc of the French Government; Juan Carlos Zentella Gomez of the Mexican government; the Portuguese government; and Hélène de Largentaye, City of Paris. This paper is released as part of the Environment Working Paper Series N° 14 [ENV/WKP(2009)9]. It can be downloaded on OECD websites, see: www.oecd.org/env/cc/cities and www.oecd.org/gov/cities Further enquiries about this work in this area should be addressed to: • Jan Corfee-Morlot ([email protected]), of the OECD Environment Directorate; and • Lamia Kamal-Chaoui ([email protected]), of the OECD Public Governance and Territorial Development Directorate. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................................................................. 3 FOREWORD ............................................................................................................................................................. 4 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ....................................................................................................................................... 8 1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................... 13 Key trends: why cities matter to climate policy ................................................................................................... 14 Urbanisation, economic growth and energy use ............................................................................................... 14 Changing climate at the global level and the impact on cities ......................................................................... 17 Urban specific climate impacts - hot spots ....................................................................................................... 19 Interface between urban socio-economic development and climate impacts ................................................... 20 Co-benefits of climate policies at local level ................................................................................................... 21 Aim and approach ................................................................................................................................................ 23 2. MULTILEVEL GOVERNANCE: A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK ............................................................ 25 Methodology and key questions to structure the analysis ................................................................................ 28 3. LOCAL AND REGIONAL GOVERNANCE .................................................................................................... 30 Increasing role of local and regional governments in climate change policies .................................................... 30 The public policy process: The planning behind climate change action plans and policies ................................ 31 (1) Agenda setting ............................................................................................................................................ 32 (2) Policy formulation .....................................................................................................................................