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Opportunity is knocking for climate action in cities

A new report from Arup with the C40 initiative to be released at COP21 next week will highlight thousands of opportunities for climate change action in cities

The huge potential for action on climate change in the worlds leading cities is to be outlined next week in new research from consultant Arup and the C40 cities climate leadership group. Over 27,000 potential actions are identified in the "Opportunity for Action" report which is to be revealed on 8 December at the COP21 conference in Paris.

The study builds research published last year in the Climate Action in Megacities report which showed that over 8,086 projects or initiatives were underway in the 66 cities of the C40, up from 4700 in 2011.

“The report that we will launch on the 8th December is about the opportunity of the untaken primary actions that can help tackling climate change,” said Paula Kirk, energy and climate change consulting group leader at Arup and a lead author of the report. “So while we are saying up to 10,000 actions have been taken there are at least 27,000 actions that have not yet been taken. There is still two thirds that can be done.”

“Often it is about the political momentum and the legislative framework. A lot of those practical issues stall the projects more than having funding available to pay for them,” Paula Kirk, energy and climate change leader, Arup

Most potential exists in actions around climate change adaptation says Kirk explaining that the impact of Hurricane Sandy, which devastated New York in 2012, has sent a strong message to cities about the importance of planning for climate hazards. Images showing decentralised energy networks, which managed to retain power in the wake of the storm highlighted the advantages of planning more resilient infrastructure.

However the report also finds that barriers exist in implementing these actions. “Often it is about the political momentum and the legislative framework. A lot of those practical issues stall the projects more than having funding available to pay for them,” says Kirk. “Cities need more support.”

Although this might seem challenging Kirk points to leadership shown in London which has brought £107M in district heating schemes to market over the past three years. “The Mayor has no power in terms of energy as it is a deregulated market but through his planning powers he set up requirements for new developments to power 10% from renewable energy and a 20% reduction in carbon emissions of every development to be met by low carbon energy generation on the site or a connection to district heating," she said.

“Cities working closely together came out extremely strongly. Thirty percent of actions taken were C40 cities collaborating with each other."

Paula Kirk, Arup

Another finding of the new report is around the importance of collaboration. “Cities working closely together came out extremely strongly. Thirty percent of actions taken were C40 cities collaborating with each other. If one city has proved a concept they find a grouping of cities with a similar profile and it is a lot easier to transfer the learning and scale it up and that is a lot of the work that Arup has done with C40.”

Arup and C40 will launch the research at COP21 next week along with research prepared with Bloomberg Philanthropies on supporting cities in developing a climate change risk assessment framework and taxonomy. More details will be revealed on 8th December at COP21.

If you would like to contact Bernadette Ballantyne about this, or any other story, please email bernadette.ballantyne@infrastructure-intelligence.com:2016-1.