Improved municipal planning for African cities : for a climate resilient urban future

Improved Municipal Planning in African CiTies (IMPACT) is a three-year project implemented in Zimbabwe and Malawi, which aims to investigate how enhanced collaboration mechanisms in municipal planning in African cities can enable climate resilient development. Examples of collaboration mechanisms include multi-sectoral forums, conferences, community-led mapping, ward committees and think tanks. Collaborative governance can improve municipal planning and in turn, increase the resilience of cities in relation to effects of climate change as well as associated social challenges

Local governments at the UNFCCC COP17/CMP7: Urbanising the climate agenda - Highlights and key outcomes

Durban, South AfricaThe Durban Adaptation Charter complements the “Global Cities Covenant on Climate - the Mexico City Pact” and ‘carbon n’ Cities Climate Registry through which cities and other local governments measure, report and verify their GHG emissions reductions, climate mitigation and adaptation actions. As countries negotiated a follow-up to the Kyoto Protocol at the UNFCCC COP17/CMP7 in Durban, South Africa (2011), local governments were there to demonstrate their leadership in finding local climate solutions - and to ensure that cities are recognized, engaged and empowered in the global agreements

Moving from agenda to action: evaluating local climate change action plans

Climate change is conventionally recognised as a large-scale issue resolved through regional or national policy initiatives. However, little research has been done to directly evaluate local climate change action plans. This study examines 40 recently adopted local climate change action plans in the US and analyses how well they recognise the concepts of climate change and prepare for climate change mitigation and adaptation. The results indicate that local climate change action plans have a high level of 'awareness', moderate 'analysis capabilities' for climate change, and relatively limited 'action approaches' for climate change mitigation. The study also identifies specific factors influencing the quality of these local jurisdictional plans. Finally, it provides policy recommendations to improve planning for climate change at the local level.climate change, local jurisdiction, action plan, quality,

Linking Greenhouse Gas Emissions to Greenhouse Gas Reduction Policies at the Local Government Level in Florida

Greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories have emerged in the last decade as a key policy and management tool for local governments to address global warming. Yet, it is evident that there are many different methodologies available to local government staff involved with developing a measure of emissions for their communities. A review of methodologies utilized by state and local governments in Florida indicates that there are highly variable approaches used to calculate inventories from different emission categories. In addition, the procedures that are used may not be appropriate for the scale of a local jurisdiction due to problems associated with generalizing or averaging emissions data. It is suggested that a more standardized approach be developed and that a clearinghouse for GHG data be established. Such an effort would help to develop clear methodologies for assessing and measuring GHG emissions at different levels of government with the goal of tracking the effectiveness of specific GHG policies. This article provides a background and comparative analysis of GHG methodologies; a summary of national, state, and local government GHG policy in Florida; an analysis for issues with linking GHG emissions to policy; and, recommendations to improve these methodologies and data collection