Urban leadership can speed renewables deployment.byRalph Sims, Massey UniversityPublished: 2010-06-01
Palmerston North, New ZealandLocal governments have significant power to influence the energy choices of their citizens. They administer and regulate water supply, waste collection, public transport, and infrastructure. They own buildings, land, waste treatment facilities and vehicle fleets and they have close proximity to citizens and businesses.
Many cities and towns have already encouraged energy efficiency measures, but relatively few have enhanced the deployment of renewable energy projects within their boundary. As demand for energy services continues to grow, the energy infrastructure that every city and town depends upon will need to be expanded and upgraded. This provides the opportunity to increase the deployment of renewable energy technologies and distributed energy systems, and hence gain multiple benefits.
A range of policies have already been employed by a few cities to stimulate local renewable energy development and achieve these multiple benefits for local citizens including energy security, reduced air pollution, sustainable development, improved health, employment, as well as helping to meet national or state ambitions for greenhouse gas emission reductions. Policies include local governance by authority, by provision, by enabling, by leadership, by self-governance, and by combinations of such approaches. Mayors of mega-cities, down to small-town officials, have successfully introduced such policies, although these vary with location, local resources, and population.
Current Status of Urban Centres
More than 50% of the world’s population now live in urban environments and this proportion will continue to grow over the next few decades. They produce around 71% of global, energy-related, CO2 emissions which is likely to rise to 76% by 2030. In OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operations and Development) countries, many cities have already taken initiatives to reduce their energy demand through improved efficiency and conservation, in an endeavour to reduce their dependence on imported energy and reduce their carbon footprints. In many cases, an increased uptake of renewable energy technologies could also be an economically viable solution to energy security and climate change mitigation, especially when all the other co-benefits are taken into account.
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