Dedicated versus mainstreaming approaches in local climate plans in Europe

Cities are gaining prominence committing to respond to the threat of climate change, e.g., by developing local climate plans or strategies. However, little is known regarding the approaches and processes of plan development and implementation, or the success and effectiveness of proposed measures. Mainstreaming is regarded as one approach associated with (implementation) success, but the extent of integration of local climate policies and plans in ongoing sectoral and/or development planning is unclear. This paper analyses 885 cities across the 28 European countries to create a first reference baseline on the degree of climate mainstreaming in local climate plans. This will help to compare the benefits of mainstreaming versus dedicated climate plans, looking at policy effectiveness and ultimately delivery of much needed climate change efforts at the city level. All core cities of the European Urban Audit sample were analyzed, and their local climate plans classified as dedicated or mainstreamed in other local policy initiatives. It was found that the degree of mainstreaming is low for mitigation (9% of reviewed cities; 12% of the identified plans) and somewhat higher for adaptation (10% of cities; 29% of plans). In particular horizontal mainstreaming is a major effort for local authorities; an effort that does not necessarily pay off in terms of success of action implementation. This study concludes that climate change issues in local municipalities are best tackled by either, developing a dedicated local climate plan in parallel to a mainstreamed plan or by subsequently developing first the dedicated and later a mainstreaming plan (joint or subsequent “dual track approach”). Cities that currently provide dedicated local climate plans (66% of cities for mitigation; 26% of cities for adaptation) may follow-up with a mainstreaming approach. This promises effective implementation of tangible climate actions as well as subsequent diffusion of climate issues into other local sector policies. The development of only broad sustainability or resilience strategies is seen as critical.We thank the many council representatives that supported the datacollection. Special thanks to Birgit Georgi who helped in setting up this large net work of researchers across the EU-28. We also thank the EU COST Action TU 0902 (ledbyRichardDawson) that established the core research network and the positive engagement and interaction of th emembers of this group. OH is Fellow of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and was funded by the UK EPSRC LC Transforms: Low Carbon Transitions of Fleet Operations in Metropolitan Sites Project (grant number EP/N010612/1). EKL was supported by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, Czechia, within the National Sustainability Program I (NPU I) (grant number LO1415). DG ac-knowledges support by the Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR), Italy ("Departments of Excellence" grant L. 232/2016). HO was supported by the Ministry of Education and Research, Estonia (grantnumberIUT34-17). MO acknowledges funding from the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO), Spain (grant number IJCI-2016-28835). SS acknowledges that CENSE's research is partially funded by the Science Foundation, Portugal (grant number UID/AMB/04085/2019). The paper reflects only the views of the authors. The European Union, the European Environment Agency or other supporting bodies are not liable for any use that may be made of the information that is provided in this manuscript

Types of Corruption in Small and Micro Enterprises (SMEs) in Ibadan, Nigeria

Corruption is a phenomenon that manifests in various types and forms especially among operators of Small and Micro Enterprises (SMEs). Many actions of the operators which constitute corrupt practices often tend to be overlooked in spite of their grave consequences for the success SMEs in Nigeria. The fight against corruption in Nigeria is more concentrated in the formal sector. This study was, therefore, designed to investigate various forms in which corrupt practices are carried out among Small and Micro Enterprises in Ibadan, Nigeria. Business owners, their employees, apprentices and consumers constituted the study population. Primary data were collected using questionnaire administered on 200 business owners, 150 employees and 150 apprentices randomly chosen in five business districts in Ibadan; and the conduct of 10 in-depth interviews with purposively selected participants. Quantitative data were analysed at uni-variate level using simple percentages and frequencies while qualitative data were content analysed. Findings from the study revealed that corrupt practices were rampant among actors in SMEs and the common types of corrupt practices included stealing (60%), deception of customers (78.4%), tax evasion (62%), sale of fake products (76%), sale of expired products (65.2%), tampering with measurement scales (69.6%), bribery (82.4%), and poor service delivery (73%). The study concludes that the level of corruption in SMEs calls for concern and government should extend the fight against corruption to the informal sector in Nigeria

Life cycle assessment of biofuels

Sustainable bioenergy production is a key issue in the global effort to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and climate change effects. A holistic investigation of the biofuel supply chain and production routes is required to realize sustainable processes. This analysis should consider technical, economic, and environmental issues regarding the production of raw biomass, application of conversion technologies, and distribution and use of products. Although technical and economic aspects can be quantified by well-established physical and financial methods, the quantification of environmental impacts is a complex task owing to the range of environmental aspects and methodologies for their analysis. Life cycle assessment (LCA), a technique introduced in the 1960s and established since the 1990s, provides a comprehensive methodology for quantification of the environmental impacts of processes, including biofuel production, and can be used as a reliable decision-making tool. The goal of this chapter is to present the key issues of LCA of biofuel production. Section 2.1 focuses on the main challenges of sustainable biofuel production and addresses the key issues regarding environmental performance in this area. Section 2.2 introduces the methodological framework of LCA and highlights its role in the promotion of biofuels. It also presents the key issues that should be considered when conducting an LCA of a biofuel production system and discusses the importance of each step of the complete biofuel life cycle, including raw material production and extraction, processing, transportation, manufacturing, storage, distribution, and utilization. Section 2.3 presents important sustainability aspects of major biomass-to-biofuel conversion routes, including first-, second-, third-, and fourth-generation biofuels. Section 2.4 provides an overview of recent LCA studies in the field of biofuel production, the main assumptions applied in these studies, and the challenges raised during the investigation of alternative biofuel production systems

Content analysis of EU Local Climate Adaptation Plans and Strategies

This dataset contains information on the characteristics of Local Climate Adaptation Plans in Europe. A sample of 328 medium- to large-sized cities across the formerly EU-28 was investigated for the availability of Local Climate Plans and strategies on climate change adaptation. A set of 168 cities out of the 328 were identified to have at least one, if not more Local Climate Adaptation Plans. The contents of these plans were documented, using an elaborated framework combining indicators of state-of-the -art plan quality principles with indicators of justice/ equity theory. Used common plan quality principles are 1) Fact base - Climate change impact, risk and vulnerability assessment (related to risk, sectors, justice), 2) Adaptation goals (related to risk, quantitative); 3) Adaptation measures (distributed across 12 sectors, justice); 4) Implementation process (prioritization, responsibility, timeframe) & tools (budget); 5) Monitoring & evaluation (responsibility, timeframe, justice). Additionally to the information on these 5 plan quality principles information on the (potential) participation process, a communication strategy, the national and regional context, as well as with access information, access data, access type, and other meta data were retrieved and documented. The publication dates of the plans range from 2005 - 2020. The collection period ranges from March 2019 to June 2021, depending on the country and city, with the majority collected between May 2019 and June 2020