Which are the factors influencing the integration of mitigation and adaptation in climate change plans in Latin American cities?

As cities are major contributors to GHG emissions and places where people face multiple climate change impacts, their critical role in responding to climate change is becoming increasingly evident. Cities are developing climate change action plans (CCAPs) focusing their efforts on reducing GHG emissions and adapting to climate change impacts. Despite having the highest urban population in the world, there are a few studies on urban CCAPs in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region. This study assessed the level of integration of mitigation and adaptation (IMA) in urban climate change plans across 44 major LAC cities. The level of IMA was measured by the utilization of the IMA index, a comprehensive evaluation framework of indicators. The results showed that more than half of the examined LAC cities have a moderate level of IMA. The study further explored and statistically analyzed 42 institutional, socioeconomic and environmental factors to identify which ones potentially drive or constrain the level of IMA. Five out of 42 factors were found to have a significant impact (p-value < 0.05) on the IMA index. Of the five significant factors, memberships in regional networks FLACMA and UCCI respectively, and donor agencies' contribution to the development of urban policies had a positive impact on IMA index; while the national climate fund and membership in the global network Urban LEDS had a negative impact. This suggests that cities are most likely to integrate mitigation and adaptation when the development of their CCAPs are supported by donor agencies or collaborating with other cities. The results highlight the important role of donor agencies, international organizations and cities' networks on providing the necessary capacity to cities for addressing climate change in an integrated manner

Participatory integrated assessment of flood protection measures for climate adaptation in Dhaka

Dhaka is one of the largest megacities in the world and its population is growing rapidly. Due to its location on a deltaic plain, the city is extremely prone to detrimental flooding, and risks associated with this are expected to increase further in the coming years due to global climate change impacts as well as the high rate of urbanization the city is facing. The lowest-lying part of Dhaka, namely Dhaka East, is facing the most severe risk of flooding. Traditionally, excess water in this part of the city was efficiently stored in water ponds and gradually drained into rivers through connected canals. However, the alarming increase in Dhaka’s population is causing encroachment of these water retention areas because of land scarcity. The city’s natural drainage is not functioning well and the area is still not protected from flooding, which causes major threats to its inhabitants. This situation increases the urgency to adapt effectively to current flooding caused by climate variability and also to the impacts of future climate change. Although the government is planning several adaptive measures to protect the area from floods, a systematic framework to analyze and assess them is lacking. The objective of this paper is to develop an integrated framework for the assessment and prioritization of various (current and potential) adaptation measures aimed at protecting vulnerable areas from flooding. The study identifies, analyzes, assesses and prioritizes adaptive initiatives and measures to address flood risks in the eastern fringe area, and the adaptation assessment is conducted within the framework of multi-criteria analysis(MCA) methodology. MCA facilitates the participation of stakeholders and hence allows normative judgements, while incorporating technical expertise in the adaptation assessment. Based on the assessment, adaptive measures are prioritized to indicate which actions should be implemented first. Such a participatory integrated assessment of adaptation options is currently lacking in the decision-making process in the city of Dhaka and could greatly help reach informed and structured decisions in the development of adaptation strategies for flood protection

Towards the development of an integrated sustainability and resilience benefits assessment framework of urban green growth interventions

Considering the current emerging demographic, urbanization and climatic trends, integrating sustainability and resilience principles into urban development becomes a key priority for decision-makers worldwide. Local and national governments, project developers and other urban stakeholders dealing with the complexities of urban development need projects with clear structure and outcomes in order to inform decision-making and ensure sources of financing. The need for developing an integrated assessment methodology that would capture and quantify multiple urban sustainability and resilience benefits of projects in one common framework and eventually lead to verifiable sustainability and resilience outcomes is immense and challenging at the same time. The main objective of this paper is to present the development of a methodological approach that aims to integrate sustainability and resilience benefits, derived from the implementation of green growth urban projects, into a unified framework of criteria addressing environmental, social, economic and institutional perspectives. The proposed sustainability and resilience benefits assessment (SRBA) methodology is a combination of top down and bottom up approaches, including GIS-based scenario building. The different types of sustainability and resilience benefits of urban green growth projects are also identified at different levels (i.e., individual, neighborhood, city and global). Moreover, the proposed methodology creates scenarios that can be illustrated by a map-based approach to enable a better illustration and visualization of benefits. It demonstrates how a map-based approach can assess not only the extent of sustainability and resilience benefits accrued (how much is benefitted), but also their spatial distribution (who is benefitted). The main methodological challenges and issues on developing an integrated sustainability and resilience benefits assessment are identified and discussed

Climate change adaptation projects: integrating prioritization and evaluation

The paper analyses the challenges of evaluating climate change adaptation measures and describes a general assessment framework that takes these challenges into consideration. The framework is integrated into an innovative decision making tool, CLIMate ACTions Prioritization (CLIMACT Prio), for the screening, prioritization and evaluation of climate change adaptation measures. CLIMACT Prio applies Multi Criteria Analysis to assist urban decision makers in identifying a wide range of decision criteria and setting priorities among different objectives. The paper concludes with the description of the preliminary application of the CLIMACT Prio to the case of Dhaka, Bangladesh, where the tool was used to prioritise and select alternative adaptation measures aimed at protecting vulnerable areas from floodin

Assessment of adaptation measures against flooding in the city of Dhaka, Bangladesh

Dhaka is one of the world’s largest megacities with a high rate of urbanization. Due to the setting of greater Dhaka in a deltaic plain, it is extremely prone to detrimental flooding. Risks associated with flood are expected to increase in the coming years because of the global climate change impacts as well as the high rate of urbanization the city is facing. The low lying part of Dhaka (Dhaka East) faces most severe risk of flooding. Traditionally, this part has been efficiently storing the excess water caused by excessive rainfall and the canals connected to the rivers gradually drained the water to the rivers. But the alarmingly increasing population of Dhaka is leading towards the encroachment of these water retention areas because of the land scarcity. The natural drainage for the city is not performing well and the area is still unprotected from flooding, which causes major threats to its inhabitants. This situation increases the urgency to effectively adapt to current floods caused by climate variability and to the impacts of future climate changes. The government is planning several adaptive measures to protect the area whereas a systematic framework to analyze and assess them is lacking. The objective of the paper is to develop an integrated framework for the assessment of various (current and potential) adaptation measures aimed at protecting vulnerable areas from flooding. The study firstly assesses current and future risks from flooding in the most sensitive region of the city. Subsequently, the study identifies, analyses and assesses adaptive initiatives and measures to address flood risks in the Eastern fringe area. Adaptation assessment is conducted within the framework of Multi Criteria Analysis methodology which allows both normative judgment and technical expertise in the assessment process. Based on the assessment and analysis, adaptive measures are prioritized to enable more effective action. Such a participatory integrated assessment of adaptation options is a new approach in flood management in least developed countries and in Bangladesh in particular. A framework for prioritization of adaptation measures is lacking in the decision making process in Bangladesh which could immensely assist in informed and structured decisions while developing adaptation strategies

特別栄誉者・新任教授等紹介

textabstractThe main objective of this article is to assess the priorities of local governments (LGs) in Europe regarding climate change mitigation technologies evaluation in the electricity sector and to provide important insights for energy policy design. The study applies a hybrid weighting methodology to elicit LGs' preferences in a constructive and iterative way regarding the evaluation criteria of low-carbon energy technologies. Furthermore, the study employs three data collection and preference elicitation methods, namely: survey, workshop, and webinar. The study was conducted across thirty one (31) European LGs that were categorized according to three variables: population size, geographical region and gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. The analysis shows that "CO2 emissions" is the most important criterion among European LGs, followed by "mortality and morbidity" and "ecosystem damages". The results illustrate the potential synergies of climate and energy policies for addressing both CO2 emissions and air pollution. It was also found, based on a correlation analysis, that LGs with higher GDP per capita tend to provide higher weights to criteria related to security of energy supply and technological innovation. The current study provides insights on the actual LGs' priorities that are important to consider during low-carbon energy technologies evaluation and energy policy design. Interestingly, the results of the European LGs' preferences clearly show that the EU climate policy objectives have reached different levels of governance-and at this particular case, the local level. Furthermore, the developed methodology could be applied at different geographical regions to map other regions' LG priorities, but also at a group decision making context to elicit relevant stakeholders' preferences regarding low-carbon energy technologies and policy objectives

Preferences matter: A constructive approach to incorporating local stakeholders' preferences in the sustainability evaluation of energy technologies

This research paper aims at developing and applying a constructive weighting methodology for the elicitation of local stakeholders' preferences regarding a set of sustainability evaluation criteria during the assessment of low-carbon energy technologies. The overall methodology has been applied and tested for the sustainability evaluation of selected low-carbon energy technologies in Europe from a local stakeholders' perspective. The researchers applied a constructive weighting methodology based on different Multiple Criteria Analysis (MCA) techniques to test the consistency of stakeholders' preferences. The methodology was piloted based on a small-scale European local stakeholders' survey within the framework of Covenant CapaCITY, an Intelligent Energy Europe project that supports the development of Sustainable Energy Action Plans (SEAPs). It became evident that the local stakeholders who participated placed high priorities on aspects such as CO2eq emissions reduction, ecosystem damages reduction, and resilience to climate change during the evaluation of low-carbon energy technologies. Considering the overall energy technologies assessment, wind off-shore, solar PV, hydropower, and wind on-shore achieved the highest scores and better reflected the priorities of local stakeholders considering a large set of multiple sustainability criteria. The high number of criteria led to some inconsistencies of stakeholders' preferences, confirming the need for consistency checks and/or combining different methods of preference elicitation

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