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Towards an effective and equitable climate change agreement : a Wuppertal proposal for Copenhagen
(2009)
This paper presents comprehensive proposals for the post-2012 climate regime: the scale of the challenge, emission targets for industrialised countries, increased actions by Southern countries, financing, technology, adaptation and deforestation. The proposals are based on ongoing research by the Wuppertal Institute.
Non-residential buildings in the European Union consume more than one third of the building sector's total. Many non-residential buildings are owned by municipalities. This paper reports about an energy saving competition that was carried out in 91 municipal buildings in eight EU member states in 2019. For each public building an energy team was formed. The energy teams' activities encompassed motivating changes in the energy use behaviour of employees and small investments. Two challenges added an element of gamification to the energy saving competition. To assess the success of the energy saving competition, an energy performance baseline was calculated using energy consumption data of each public building from previous years. Energy consumption in the competition year was monitored on a monthly base. After the competition the top energy savers from each country were determined by the percentage-based reduction of energy consumption compared to the baseline. On average, the buildings had an electricity and heat consumption in 2019 that was about 8 % and 7 %, respectively, lower than the baseline. As an additional data source for the evaluation, a survey among energy team members was conducted at the beginning and after the energy competition. Support from superiors, employee interest and motivation and behaviour change as assessed by energy team members show a positive, if weak or moderate, correlation with changes in electricity consumption, but not with changes in heat consumption.
Climate change induces various risks for supply chains of manufacturing firms. However, surveys have suggested that only a minority of firms conducts strategic adaptations, which we define as anticipatory and target-oriented action with the purpose of increasing resilience to climate change. While several barrier-centered studies have investigated the causality of non-adaptation in industry, the examined barriers are often not problem-specific. Furthermore, it has been shown that even in cases when managers perceive no barriers to adaptation at all, strategic adaptations may still not be conducted. On this background, the present analysis focuses on the logic of adaptive inaction, which we conceive, in particular, as inaction with regard to strategic adaptations. Adopting an action-theoretical perspective, the study examines (a) which aspects may shape the rationality of adaptive inaction among managers, (b) which more condensed challenges of conducting strategic adaptations emerge for managers, and (c) how the theoretical propositions can be tested. For this purpose, the study employs an exploratory approach. Thus, hypotheses on such aspects are explored, which may shape the rationality of adaptive inaction among managers. Subsequently, predictions are inferred from the theoretical propositions, which allow testing their empirical relevance. Methodologically, the hypotheses are explored by reexamining existing explanatory approaches from literature based on a set of pretheoretical assumptions, which include notions of bounded rationality. As a result, the study proposes 13 aspects which may constrain managers in conducting adaptations in such a way, which serves the economic utility of the firm. By condensing these aspects, 4 major challenges for managers are suggested: the challenges of (a) conducting long-term adaptations, of (b) conducting adaptations at an early point in time, of (c) conducting adaptations despite uncertain effects of the measures, and of (d) conducting adaptations despite cross-tier dependencies in supply chains. Finally, the study shows how the propositions can be tested and outlines a research agenda based on the developed theoretical suggestions.
Urban development faces numerous challenges in the 21st century and a central task is the sustainable and liveable design of the city. Can the concept of a Smart City be a tool to making cities more liveable and sustainable? To find out, we chose a biographical method to analyse the steps towards a successful Smart City and to better understand the structures behind it. We combine the innovation biography method with a process model from sustainability governance research, namely Steurer's sustainability governance model and apply them to Vienna's Smart City, especially the preparation of the Vienna Smart City framework strategy (Steurer & Trattnigg, 2010). On the one hand, this article shows that a transfer of the innovation biography method to urban research can generate deeper insights on urban development processes in general. On the other hand, the approach chosen can show that Vienna integrates the sustainable urban design into the process of Smart City design. So the smart and sustainable city design, often called for in theoretical contributions, is practised in Vienna. Due to its reconstructive character, the biographical method has revealed that it is possible to govern sustainability by using Smart City as an umbrella strategy, as long as one manages it in an integrated and holistic way, recognises trends and is able to acquire and use research funds effectively and efficiently.
The knowledge gained from the new method for urban and Smart City research is twofold. Firstly, the transfer of the method previously developed in the human sciences and subsequently for organisations, institutions and products and services also works in urban research. Second, the innovation biography provides in-depth insights into the process towards the Smart City and the stakeholders involved. The use of the biographical method highlights the relevance of good governance in terms of interdisciplinary cooperation on the one hand and high political commitment on the other through the micro-level perspective and is also sensitive enough to highlight the importance of an appropriate narrative in and for the process towards the Smart City.
The transformation of society into sustainable structures is one of the most important tasks for the future. That cities have a decisive role to play in this transformation process has been known at least since Rio 1992. They have enormous pressure to act for change: They are at the same time problem and solution for sustainable development. Currently there is another significant development for cities - the need and external pressure to be "smart", often understood merely as applying the latest digital technologies to become more efficient. The Smart City and the Sustainable City can work hand in hand or hinder each other, depending on their interpretation. In this study we focus on five Smart Cities in Western Germany to get a closer look at how they shape their processes and whether the underlying motivation is to become a technologically Smart City, focus on sustainable development, or both. With the help of the innovation biography research method, we show how cities shape the dynamic process towards forming a Smart City, the role sustainable urban development plays in the process, who the actors involved are, and the important role improved knowledge management then plays for the diffusion of the Smart Sustainable City within the region. It becomes clear how important communication and narratives are both in the process within each City towards forming a Smart Sustainable City and for the first step of diffusion, the adaptation of other cities within the region. This study is intended to serve both as a basis for cross-regional consideration and dialogue for the transfer of successful processes.
Shifting baselines : the interdependency of local and national policies to reduce GHG emissions
(2013)
Climate change and thus low-carbon transitions are global challenges, which require commitment and effort on all political levels. As international climate politics has approached its limits over the last two decades, the role of cities has simultaneously gained in importance. Many cities1 worldwide have committed to ambitious climate protection targets, which often exceed national targets. However, cities cannot act in isolation. Their opportunities for action are embedded in an (inter)national policy framework, which may either support or hinder local actions. This gives rise to the question: which opportunities for climate protection do cities really have in a political system of multi-level governance?
This question can be illustrated using the city of Hamburg as an example for the German climate policy regime. The city aims to reduce its annual CO2 emissions by 2 million metric tons and attempts to quantify the impact of local and national policies and actions using a bottom-up monitoring approach. We therefore analyse more than 400 local actions with respect to the induced CO2 emission reductions. We also take a closer look at national and European policies and their impacts on local energy use and emissions. In total, 15 policies and instruments - broadly ranging from instruments to foster energy efficiencyin residential and non-residential buildings, in appliances and in the transport sector, to support renewable energy sources (including biofuels) and to uptake CHP - are considered.
Our approach consists in measuring separately the impact of local and national policies and actions on urban CO2 emissions. While the city of Hamburg has implemented many policies and actions, our results show that, a significant proportion of its CO2 reduction is due to national policies, in the context of the German "Energiewende", which cannot or can only indirectly be influenced by the city. The results imply that local commitment and effort is essential in addressing the global challenge, yet ambitious targets can only be met in the presence of a supportive national policy framework. The analysis shows that many policies and measures implemented at national level require supportive structures and activities at local level in order to bridge information and implementation gaps of these measures.
Many European city governments have voluntarily committed to ambitious CO2-emission reduction targets until 2020 and 2050. Supported by dedicated structures and networks (e.g. Covenant of Mayors), local governments have already developed, or are currently developing, ambitious climate action plans, all pursuing the aim of radical CO2-emission reduction in the long term.
Though, the development of climate action plans is only a first step, as the actual crucial and more challenging part its implementation. Besides financial investments also additional capacities, improved institutional structures and innovative strategies are necessary to successfully implement ambitious policies within existing national and regional framework conditions. There is often more competition than co-operation between cities. However, exchanging on common challenges in order to find new solutions provides potential for innovative ideas and new views on own structures. In particular, methods and formats for self-assessment and mutual learning can support cities' stakeholders to overcome their implementation gap in local energy and climate policies.
This paper will present results from the first phase of the three year project "CASCADE", which was initiated by 19 European cities in co-operation with EUROCITIES. Within the project, implementation challenges are being addressed in an intensive process of self-assessment and mutual learning. The methodological "backbone" of this process is a qualitative benchmarking framework in the thematic fields of "Renewable energy sources and distributed energy generation", "Energy efficient buildings and districts" and “Energy in urban transport”. Up to a certain degree, existing local climate policy benchmarks provide a common exchange platform, but mainly for the comparison between cities. The CASCADE benchmarking framework goes beyond competitive comparisons. As a qualitative criteria-based assessment procedure it identifies key challenges and factors for a successful implementation of established local climate policy plans. These factors have been developed from a qualitative survey including interviews and workshops with representatives of the participating cities.
Six cities serve as examples. Self-assessment reports were provided based on the CASCADE benchmarking framework focussing on the implementation status of their local climate policies. These reports were reevaluated by four or five project partners from different cities in a desk-review process. During subsequent four-days peer learning visits, the CASCADE benchmarking framework was used again as a tool for an in-depth assessment of the local climate and energy action plans and the local activities towards implementation of these strategic documents. Finally, the visitors drafted a feedback report with recommendations and improvements for the hosts.
The paper describes the methodology of the CASCADE benchmarking framework for integrated learning, its applicability for peer learning processes, as well as first experiences and results from the peer learning visits.
Mixed-method research to foster energy efficiency investments by small private landlords in Germany
(2020)
The decarbonisation of the building stock is an important element for the success of the German Energiewende (energy transition). Despite some progress having been made, the rate of energy renovation falls below the level required to meet political commitments. This gives rise to the question: what deters property owners from making energy efficiency investments and how can the policy framework foster such investments? To answer this question, the paper focuses on a widely neglected property owner group: small private landlords (SPL). Although they manage 37% of all residential rental properties in Germany, very little is known about their decision-making processes for energy efficiency investments. We applied a mixed-method design to identify factors that hindered and supported their investments. In an explorative study, we initially conducted 18 problem-centred interviews. Subsequently, we carried out a postal survey and analysed the questionnaires using a hierarchical linear regression model. The results show that energy renovation is a multi-dimensional decision-making process, which can only be adequately addressed by a comprehensive policy package. To develop such a package, the author recommends that the specific investment behaviour of SPL must be better targeted, their knowledge about energy efficiency investments must be improved through exchange and networking, a sense of responsibility for the neighbourhood must be fostered, and greater focus must be placed on improving local framework conditions
The German contribution to limiting global warming to two degrees has to be - as in other developed countries, too - a reduction of 80 to 95 percent of CO2 emissions by 2050 compared to 1990. The project "Low Carbon City Wuppertal 2050" has analysed how such a drastic reduction of CO2 could be achieved on a municipal level in the transportation and residential sector by also working on the land use and material flows dimension. The focus of this paper lies on the space heating in the residential sector.
Wuppertal is a city with about 350,000 inhabitants in the West of Germany. According to the CO2 balance (2007) of the city that was adjusted to the year 2010, the emissions that were caused by space heating in the residential sector remained almost the same since 1990. They decreased slightly from 693,000 tons CO2 in 1990 to 691,000 tons in 2010, although final energy use for space heating increased by about 15 percent. But the shift of energy sources especially from coal to gas avoided an increase of emissions. However, the reduction target of 95 percent means that CO2 emissions have to be reduced to 35,000 tons per year until 2050.
A reference scenario shows that the city could achieve about 30 percent of the reduction required with the current trend of renewable energy development and energy efficiency measures such as retrofitting the building stock. But looking at the difficult financial conditions of the municipality as well as at the socio-economic situation of the inhabitants it becomes clear that the remaining 65 percent of the target to a 95 percent reduction will be difficult to reach and that innovative measures of energy efficiency and sufficiency1 need to be developed.
But which social-ecological effects does the implementation of comprehensive climate protection measures have on the inhabitants of a city? How do people live in a "Low Carbon City"? In this paper qualitative and quantitative scenarios will be developed since the combination of both is promising to show both effects: what share could renewable energies, energy efficiency and sufficiency measures have in reaching the target of 95 percent, and how could life look like in an almost CO2 free city in Germany in 2050.
How are neighbours doing? : Making energy efficiency efforts comparable through NEEAP screening
(2012)
Energy efficiency watch : final report on the evaluation of national energy efficiency action plans
(2009)
Urban areas, being responsible for large shares of global greenhouse gas emissions, are important arenas for achieving global decarbonisation. However, the systemic challenge of decarbonisation requires deep structural changes - transitions - that take place across multiple scales and along entire value chains. We argue in this article that understanding the role of urban areas for global decarbonisation therefore requires consideration of their context and analysis of urban areas' contributions to transitions that extend past the individual urban area. We develop an analytical framework that proposes three principal ways urban areas contribute to low-carbon transitions and ten competences that regional and local governance actors have to support them. We apply this framework to the Cologne metropolitan area in Germany to demonstrate the ability of our framework to relate urban-scale activities to more encompassing low-carbon transitions. The paper concludes with future research possibilities.
Policy evaluation is widely considered important for assessing policies for effectiveness and impact. Municipalities are among the political actors implementing energy and climate policy. Yet, few municipalities have introduced adequate instruments to monitor the effectiveness of their actions. Often, municipal actors consider local greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories to be sufficient to monitor the impact of their actions. This paper points out why the expectations placed on local GHG inventories as a monitoring instrument can rarely be met in practice. On the basis of German examples, it shall be shown that a thorough calculation of actual local energy and GHG reductions attributable to local efforts is often only partially possible, and is complicated by external factors. A supplementary approach to the top-down method is to evaluate local programmes from the bottom-up. This paper discusses efforts to develop an instrument for a bottom-up monitoring of the city of Hamburg's Climate Action Plan.
The need for sustainable energy management at the municipal level is growing, in order to meet EU climate goals. Multiple initiatives have been launched to support municipalities in energy planning and strategy development process. Despite available support, research shows mixed results about implementation of plans and strategies. This research paper analyses what targets municipalities set, how they monitor implementation of their sustainable energy action plans (SEAPs) and searches for the most important factors that have enabled or hindered the implementation of local SEAPs at Latvia. The article shows that, in some cases, there is evidence that SEAP development is a project-based activity, supported by external experts. From municipal personnel point of view, it is a project that ends with approved SEAP, but not a part of their future daily routine. Eventually implementation of the plan is difficult, because municipalities lack experience in daily management of energy data, distribution of responsibilities and implementation of procedures. Municipalities also tend to exclude important stakeholders in their SEAPs, like, private sector, household sector and transport sector, which lead to lower targets and lower achievements in GHG reduction.
More and more countries are incorporating the instrument of emissions trading into their national climate policies. This emerging mosaic of emissions trading schemes (ETS) raises the question of whether they should be linked with each other. From an economic point of view, linking of domestic schemes is supposed to increase the economic efficiency of carbon markets. In addition, linking is also expected by some to yield substantial political benefits in terms of the evolution of the UNFCCC/Kyoto regime. However, these optimistic prospects are based on a best-case scenario where all major countries establish environmentally effective emissions trading systems and then link them with each other. Real-life politics might develop rather differently. This paper therefore examines to what extent the current status of emissions trading in industrialised countries provides a basis for reinforcing and moving forward the international climate regime through linking domestic ETS. After comparing emerging emissions trading schemes from an institutional perspective, it emerges that not only emissions trading is at a very early stage in most countries, in addition the emerging systems are probably going to be designed very differently from the EU ETS. While for some design features such as the coverage design differences do not matter, there are some areas where the plans in many non-EU countries look crucially different from the EU system. The outlook for a linked international ETS is therefore currently still very uncertain. Given this state of affairs, the EU should pro-actively engage with the non-EU countries to try to harmonise their developing national emissions trading schemes with the EU ETS, widely disseminate the lessons it has learned from the EU ETS, strongly make the case for environmental integrity and at the same time make clear that systems that want to link to the EU ETS will need to meet certain quality criteria.
The study "A Green New Deal for Europe" consists of two basic elements: Firstly it aims to cope with the economic crisis through intensive measures in order to systematically stimulate the eco-industries, to create jobs and to boost economic recovery. Secondly it aims at establishing the foundation for a green modernisation of the European economy. The study examines existing EU strategies policies and programs concerning their suitability to implement the Green New Deal. It proposes exemplary measures in the field of energy, mobility and resource use. The study has been compiled by the Wuppertal Institute on behalf of the Greens/European Free Alliance (EFA) Group in the European Parliament.