Cities and Climate Change: Strategic Options for Philanthropic Support
Regionalized urban climate action is ripe for funding
As city-based climate action increases, additional funding will play a critical role to help build capacity, networks, and strategies to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. To help urban climate policy planners identify areas where more investment can accelerate action, the Institute for Sustainable Energy (now the Boston University Institute for Global Sustainability) evaluated which levers will most rapidly and significantly catalyze emissions reductions, and which methods of engagement hold the most promise for widespread action.
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AUTHORS
Jennifer Hatch, John Cleveland, Michael Silano, Peter Fox-Penner
Key Findings and Recommendations
- Urban areas account for an increasingly large percentage of GHG emissions, making them key to decarbonization strategies at regional and state levels.
- Foundations are essential in providing the capacity necessary to follow through on the promise of large reduction gains.
- Two key engagement strategies for cities are recommended, based on the status of climate mitigation in the U.S.:
- Organizing cities to influence state policy, which is best suited for states that have the potential to change their energy supply to cleaner generation sources, implement cap-and-trade strategies, and more.
- Coordinating mitigation at the metro-region scale, which is best targeted to states with GHG emissions that are concentrated within metro regions.
- For state-level policy change, target cities in the following states that have a combination of high levels of emissions and low levels of proactive climate mitigation action: Texas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Florida, Michigan, Colorado, and Nevada.
- In-city mitigation strategies remain critical, and the report urges cities to continue these efforts, especially work on thermal and transportation decarbonization.
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