Stimulating urban transition and transformation to achieve sustainable and resilient cities

Political decision-makers need to consider the various challenges and opportunities that climate change can bring, and they must take decisions under high uncertainty to achieve resilient cities. Here, we synthesise the push and pull approaches reported in the literature and employed in practice to achieve sustainable and resilient cities. First, we present a literature review which identified the major research fields on transition theories, frameworks and methods that underpin this concept. We analyse the conditions for change, identify enablers or triggers for change at governance level for transitioning a city towards sustainability and resilience. We discuss the theories, frameworks and methods which can be used to address the urban climate change challenge at city level. Second, we present an empirical approach based on stakeholder participation that we conducted to detect the conditions for change. We report on the design and implementation of stakeholder exercises that helped us detecting the conditions for changes. Third, we combine the information obtained from these stakeholder exercises with that extracted from the literature in order to provide a fuller picture on how stimulate the transition and transformation to achieve sustainable and resilient cities. Based on our literature review and empirical approach, we formulate an integrated conceptual model for transition that enables the design of adaptation (and mitigation) strategies that consider the triggers of change. Uniquely we identified 8 triggers of change, including authority and political leadership, learning from disasters, co-responsibility, increased public-private interface, social participation and the living lab approach to innovation. The proposed model can be applied to the whole city or to a certain sector of the city (e.g. energy). We demonstrate that triggers of change help to overcome planning and implementation barriers and move the socio-ecological and socio-technical systems of any city towards those of a resilient city.This work was supported by the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme: Grant Agreement No. 308497, Project RAMSES “Reconciling Adaptation, Mitigation and Sustainable Development for Cities”, 2012–2017. In addition, this study has received partial funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 653522 (RESIN−Climate Resilient Cities and Infrastructures project)

State of the art and latest advances in exploring business models for nature-based solutions

Nature-based solutions (NBS) offer multiple solutions to urban challenges simultaneously, but realising funding for NBS remains a challenge. When the concept of NBS for societal challenges was first defined by the EC in 2017, financing was recognised as one of the major challenges to its mainstreaming. The complexity of NBS finance has its origin in the multiple benefits/stakeholders involved, which obscures the argument for both public and private sector investment. Since 2017, subsequent waves of EU research-and innovation-funded projects have substantially contributed to the knowledge base of funding and business models for NBS, particularly in the urban context. Collaborating and sharing knowledge through an EU Task Force, this first set of EU projects laid important knowledge foundations, reviewing existing literature, and compiling empirical evidence of different financing approaches and the business models that underpinned them. The second set of EU innovation actions advanced this knowledge base, developing and testing new implementation models, business model tools, and approaches. This paper presents the findings of these projects from a business model perspective to improve our understanding of the value propositions of NBS to support their mainstreaming

Will climate mitigation ambitions lead to carbon neutrality? An analysis of the local-level plans of 327 cities in the EU

Cities across the globe recognise their role in climate mitigation and are acting to reduce carbon emissions. Knowing whether cities set ambitious climate and energy targets is critical for determining their contribution towards the global 1.5 °C target, partly because it helps to identify areas where further action is necessary. This paper presents a comparative analysis of the mitigation targets of 327 European cities, as declared in their local climate plans. The sample encompasses over 25% of the EU population and includes cities of all sizes across all Member States, plus the UK. The study analyses whether the type of plan, city size, membership of climate networks, and its regional location are associated with different levels of mitigation ambition. Results reveal that 78% of the cities have a GHG emissions reduction target. However, with an average target of 47%, European cities are not on track to reach the Paris Agreement: they need to roughly double their ambitions and efforts. Some cities are ambitious, e.g. 25% of our sample (81) aim to reach carbon neutrality, with the earliest target date being 2020.90% of these cities are members of the Climate Alliance and 75% of the Covenant of Mayors. City size is the strongest predictor for carbon neutrality, whilst climate network(s) membership, combining adaptation and mitigation into a single strategy, and local motivation also play a role. The methods, data, results and analysis of this study can serve as a reference and baseline for tracking climate mitigation ambitions across European and global cities

Copernicus for Urban Resilience in Europe: Final results from the CURE project

A major challenge for the urban community is the exploitation of Earth Observation intelligence in managing in the multidimensional nature of urban sustainability towards enhancing urban resilience, particularly in relation to the challenges of climate change. This study presents the ways in which the H2020 funded project CURE (Copernicus for Urban Resilience in Europe) synergistically exploited Copernicus Core Services to develop cross-cutting applications supporting urban resilience. CURE provided the urban planning community with spatially disaggregated environmental intelligence at a local scale, as well as a proof-of-concept that urban planning and management strategies development enhancing the resilience of cities can be supported by Copernicus Core Services. Here, we demonstrate the technical operational feasibility of an umbrella cross-cutting system on urban resilience, consisting of 11 specific applications. These use Copernicus core products from at least two services each as main input information, reflect the main urban sustainability dimensions and are relevant to user needs, which were identified based on a strong stakeholders' engagement. As a result, CURE is built on Data and Information Access Services (DIAS), as a system integrating these cross-cutting applications, capable of supporting downstream services across Europe, enabling its incorporation into operational Copernicus products portfolio in the future and also addressing its economic feasibility. For more information on CURE: http://cure-copernicus.e

State of the art and latest advances in exploring business models for nature-based solutions

Nature-based solutions (NBS) offer multiple solutions to urban challenges simultaneously, but realising funding for NBS remains a challenge. When the concept of NBS for societal challenges was first defined by the EC in 2017, financing was recognised as one of the major challenges to its mainstreaming. The complexity of NBS finance has its origin in the multiple benefits/stakeholders involved, which obscures the argument for both public and private sector investment. Since 2017, subsequent waves of EU research-and innovation-funded projects have substantially contributed to the knowledge base of funding and business models for NBS, particularly in the urban context. Collaborating and sharing knowledge through an EU Task Force, this first set of EU projects laid important knowledge foundations, reviewing existing literature, and compiling empirical evidence of different financing approaches and the business models that underpinned them. The second set of EU innovation actions advanced this knowledge base, developing and testing new implementation models, business model tools, and approaches. This paper presents the findings of these projects from a business model perspective to improve our understanding of the value propositions of NBS to support their mainstreaming

Climate mitigation in the Mediterranean Europe: An assessment of regional and city-level plans

International audienceIn Europe, regions in the Mediterranean area share common characteristics in terms of high sensitivity to climate change impacts. Does this translate into specificities regarding climate action that could arise from these Mediterranean characteristics? This paper sheds light on regional and local climate mitigation actions of the Mediterranean Europe, focusing on the plans to reduce greenhouse gases emissions in a representative sample of 51 regions and 73 cities across 9 Mediterranean countries (Croatia, Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain). The study investigates: (i) the availability of local and regional mitigation plans, (ii) their goals in term of greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets on the short and medium-long term, and (iii) the impact of transnational climate networks on such local and regional climate mitigation planning. Results of this study indicate an uneven and fragmented planning, that shows a Mediterranean West-East divide, and a link with population size. However, overall, both regional and city action seem insufficiently ambitious with regards to meeting the Paris Agreement, at least at city level. While national frameworks are currently weak in influencing regional and local actions, transnational networks seem to be engaging factors for commitment (at city level) and ambitiousness (at regional level). The uneven and fragmented progress revealed by this study, does not align with the characteristics shared by investigated regions and cities in terms of environmental, socio-political, climatic and economic conditions. The results support the call of a common green deal at the Mediterranean level to further address specific Mediterranean challenges and related needs. This will allow to capitalise on available resources, generate local-specific knowledge, build capacities, and support Mediterranean regions and cities in preparing the next generation of more ambitious mitigation plans

State of play of local adaptation planning in the Mediterranean Europe

ABSTRACT: European cities across the Mediterranean region face common climatic threats. Urbanised areas are highly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change, including climate variability and climate extremes. Cities concentrate population and assets, and losses and damages as a result of climate change impacts such as heat waves, droughts, wildfires, landslides, coastal hazards are likely. So far, however, there is no systematic understanding how cities in the Mediterranean Europe are preparing to adapt to these impacts, nor of how they aim to increase their resilience and adaptive capacity. Understanding how cities plan to manage climatic risks will help to identify action gaps, allocate resources and provides better-informed climate policy, at local, regional national and international scale. This research gathered and analysed adaptation planning documents in a representative sample of 73 cities across 9 Mediterranean European countries (France, Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Croatia, Slovenia, Cyprus and Malta) in the context of their national policies. The results and this paper shed important light on the progress of adaptation planning, by focusing on identified impacts and proposed adaptation measures.N/