1. — 1 —
1
Jie Zhou
2rd. Nov, 2015
Cities and the Multilevel Governance
of Global Climate Change
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UCL
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Case Study - CHINA
Conclusion
Background
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Background1
• The traditional approaches to
international relations offer limited
conceptual space for analysing that.
Nation states cooperation is not enough.
• Shape global environmental
governance by taking a multilevel
perspective to capture the social,
political and economic processes.
City level
National level
Global
International cooperation
Multilevel governance
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Background1
ICLEI’s
Cities for Climate Protection (CCP)
• Cities for Climate Proteaction (CCP),1993
• aims to facilitate emissions reduction of
local governments
• measurement, commitment, planning,
implementing and monitoring
• 2009
• more than 1000 local governments
worldwide
• http://www.iclei.org/
• Agenda 21: issued at the Rio Earth
Summit in 1992
• Local Agenda 21: local authorities take
steps to implement the plan locally
• Two thirds of the 2500 action items of
Agenda 21 relate to local councils
e.g) how to improve recycling more,
reducing wastage, and minimising our
contribution to pollution.
• http://www.sustainable-environment.org.uk/Action/Local_Agenda_21.php
Local Agenda (LA) 21
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UCL
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Case Study - CHINA
Conclusion
Background
• What’s current situation about Chinese’s cities?
• How many GHG emissions are from cities; and from where?
• How big potential of Chinese cities to reduce GHG emission?
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Case Study - CHINA2
Population of Cities
In 2014, urban population reached 742,000,000
54%
10%
CHN Population
WORLD Population
Source: National Bureau of Statistics
More than 100 cities
Population > 1,000,000
6 world’s mega-cities
Population >
10,000,000,000
• the urban share of national CO2 emissions was higher, at 58%.
• the average urban dweller emitted 1.4 times as much energy-
related CO2 as a rural resident
Urbanization Urban construction boom
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Case Study - CHINA2
Source of urban energy-related CO2 Emissions (2010)
Manufacturing Facilities
Industrial parks
Heavy industries especially
cement and steel plants
Residential buildings
Commercial/ public buildings
Passenger transport
Freight transport
TransportationBuildingIndustry
Source: National Bureau of Statistics, 2012 China Statistical Yearbook.
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Case Study - CHINA2
increase by 305 million ≈
Abatement Potential
0
2000
4000
6000
8000
10000
12000
14000
16000
2010a 2020a 2030a 2040a 2050a
Industry
Transport
Commercial buildings
Residential buildings
Scenario 1: Business As Usual (MtCO2)
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000
8000
9000
2010a 2020a 2030a 2040a 2050a
Industry
Transport
Commercial buildings
Residential buildings
Scenario 2: Low-carbon Development(MtCO2)
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
1600
2010a 2020a 2030a 2040a 2050a
Urban
Rural
Peak
China’s Urban& Rural Population Trends(2010-2050)
millions
Source:
National Bureau of Statistics, 2012 China Statistical Yearbook.
Based on LBNL calculations using the Reinventing Fire: China Model.
Peak
Peak
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Case Study - CHINA2
Layers
• 42 Pilot Cities
• Developed City-level Protocols
• U.S.-China Climate-Smart/Low-Carbon Cities Summit
(2015) 18 U.S. cities + 11 China’s cities
• GHG Emission Inventory and methods by National
Development and Reform Commission, NDRC
• Carbon Emissions Trading Pilot Market
Governance of GHG Emission– TOP DOWN
• China-U.S. Joint Presidential Statement on Climate Change (2015)
• South-South Cooperation Fund(2014)
• Inter-governmental climate change cooperation with 19 countries
• China’s Intended National Determined Contributions(2015)
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Case Study - CHINA2
• Establish Ambitious Target(s)
• Report on GHG Inventories
• Establish Climate Action Plans
• Enhance Bilateral Partnership and Cooperation
“U.S.-China Climate Leaders’ Declaration”
Source: U.S.-China Climate Leaders’ Declaration
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Conclusion4
Cities and local governments:
• primary source of GHG emissions
• often at the forefront of efforts
They are already leading the way to combat climate change through:
• promoting energy efficiency
• renewable energy
• low-carbon transportation
• sustainable growth patterns
• sustainable and low-carbon city policies
• etc.
Multilevel governance offers an alternative way of traditional approaches.
(national and global scale)
The main messages of this article is ~~~ is not effective way to combat climate change We have already thought about reduction of the carbon emission in a global level
This article says this is a traditional way to tackle with climate change and this traditional approach has very limited conceptual space for analysing the international relation
Want to contend that it is very important to take a multilevel perspective to shape a global environment governance
Local governments can facilitate action in response to climate change by fostering partnership;
Local governments have considerable experience in addressing environmental impacts;
These two programmes are examples of action agenda that multilevel governance try to reduce the carbon emission locally.
For example in 1992, agenda 21 was issued in order to achieve the sustainable develoment
And at this summit, UN agreed that the best starting point for the achievement of sustainable development is at the local level.
In fact two thirds of the 2500 action items of agenda 21 relate to local councils .
For these reasons, local agenda 21 that local authorities take steps to implement the plan locally was issued.
In the case of china, i’d like to give you a brief introduction about the role of Chinese cities in greenhouse gas emission reduction.
So in my presentation, I will answer the following questions
1.What the current situation about Chinese cities;
2.How many GHG emission are come from cities; and from where;
3.How big the potential for Chinese cities to reduce GHG emission;
China is currently in the process of rapid industrialization and urbanization,
In 2014, China’s urban population reached 742 million, which accounts for 54% of China’s population and 10% of total world population
Meanwhile, China has six of the world’s and more than 100 cities with a population greater than one million
Rapid urbanization has driven economic growth, but also resulted in significant energy consumption and CO2 emissions.
unprecedented
Obviously, China’s urban energy-related CO2 emissions were dominated by industrial emissions from manufacturing facilities, industrial parks, and even heavy industries such as cement and steel plants located near cities,
Buildings represent about a quarter of urban CO2 emissions, divided evenly between residential and commercial/public buildings,
while about 13% of emissions were from transportation energy use.
Now, China is experiencing an un‘precedented migration from rural areas to cities.
The urban population is expected to increase by 305 million between 2015 and 2050, nearly the population of the United States.
So, under that circumstance, How big the potential for Chinese cities to reduce GHG emission;
there are two scenarios: business as usual and low-carbon development respectively.
There are two differences between these two scenarios:
The total volume of the carbon emission; in scenario 1 the total emission will up to 14 billion tons. Nearly two times of that in low carbon scenario;
Next, the most important, is the peak of emission. Because in china, there will still be a significant growth for CO2 emission in next 2 decades. But under the low-carbon development scenario, the peak will come earlier by 2030.
Beijing and 10 other Chinese cities will agree to peak greenhouse gas emissions in advance of 2030
So how to guarantee the goal?
Basically, we need effort both inside our country and cooperation with others.
And I’ll focus on the cooperation aspect existing in different levels.
On the national level, china and us signed a joint presi’dential statement on climate change, it just happened in last month.
This is the kind of cooperation with developed countries;
and meanwhile, China established a South-South Cooperation Fund to help developing countries address climate change
Up to now, China has signed a memo’randum of understanding on inter-governmental climate change cooperation with 19 countries.
Additional, for COP21, China presents its enhanced actions and measures on climate change as our nationally determined contributions
At Provincial level：
China already set up mechanism for GHG emission inventory, including measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) system for greenhouse gases
And also established carbon emission trading program.
Cities：
In city level I want to mention the most recent event which hold in LA, called US- china climate-smart/low-carbon cities summit.
The Summit is the first official meeting of U.S. and Chinese subnational leaders on climate change
The actions mentioned in the U.S.-China Climate Leaders’ Declaration, including the following 4 aspects.
For the last one: Enhance Bilateral Partnership and Cooperation:
Both of the subnational leaders from US and China agreed that regular bilateral dialogue and cooperation is essential for sharing best practices and lessons, as well as deploying low carbon technologies.
So conclusion:
Ffirstly, cities and local governments are the primary source of all greenhouse gas emissions and are on the frontlines to combate the extreme weather caused by climate change
Secondly, they are already leading the way in: promoting energy efficiency, renewable energy, low-carbon transportation, etc.
it means that they have considerable experience in addressing environmental impacts.
Thirdly, Multilevel governance offers an alternative analysis of traditional approaches
