LOW CARBON CITY

1. Context

2. What is Energy System Transition?

• An energy-system transition could reduce urban carbon dioxide emissions by around 74%.
• With rapid advancements in clean energy and related technologies and nose-diving prices, we have also crossed the economic and technological barriers to implementing low-carbon solutions.
• The transition must be implemented both on the demand and supply sides.
• Mitigation options on the supply side include phasing out fossil fuels and increasing the share of renewables in the energy mix, and using carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies.
• On the demand side, using the 'avoid, shift, improve' framework would entail reducing the demand for materials and energy, and substituting the demand for fossil fuels with renewables.
• Second, to address residual emissions in the energy sector, we must implement carbon-dioxide removal (CDR) technologies.
• Indeed, we have the appropriate technologies and knowledge base to build net-zero urban systems through the energy transition.

3. Strategies to mitigate and adapt to low-carbon

• The strategies to mitigate and adapt to low carbon varies based on a city's characteristics.
• Transitioning to renewable energy sources is not as simple as replacing fossil fuels with clean energy.
• There are multifarious issues of energy justice and social equality to deal with. This is a key consideration when we frame energy transition policies that are socially and environmentally fair.
• These considerations are a city's spatial form, land use pattern, level of development, and state of urbanization.
• An established city can retrofit and repurpose its infrastructure to increase energy efficiency and promote public as well as active transport like bicycling and walking.
• In fact, walkable cities designed around people can significantly reduce energy demand, as can electrifying public transport and setting up renewable-based district cooling and heating networks.
• A rapidly growing city can try to colocate housing and jobs by planning the city to bring places of work closer to residential complexes, thus reducing transport energy demand.
• Such cities can also leapfrog to low carbons technologies, including renewable and CCS.
• New and emerging cities have the most potential to reduce emissions using energy-efficient services and infrastructure, and a people-centric urban design.
• They can also implement building codes that mandate net zero energy use and retrofit existing buildings while gradually shifting to low-emission construction material.

4. Just Energy Transition

• Energy systems are directly and indirectly linked to livelihoods, local economic development, and the socioeconomic well-being of people engaged in diverse sectors.
• A one-size-fits-all approach is unlikely to ensure a socially and environmentally just transition.
• For example, transitioning to renewable energy sources could disproportionately affect groups of people or communities in developing economies and sectors that depend on fossil fuels.
• Broadly, the energy supply needs to be balanced against fast-growing energy demand (due to urbanization, e.g.), the need for energy security, and exports.
• Additional justice concerns include land dispossession related to large-scale renewable energy projects, spatial concentration of poverty, the marginalization of some communities, gendered impacts, and the reliance on coal for livelihood.

5. Way Forward

• Ensuring a transition to low-carbon energy systems in cities at different stages of urbanization, national contexts, and institutional capacities requires strategic and bespoke efforts.
• They must be directed at governance and planning, achieving behavioral shifts, promoting technology and innovation, and building institutional capacity.
• we must also adopt a comprehensive approach to address the root causes of energy and environmental injustices.
• This includes mitigation and adaptation responses that engage multiple stakeholders in energy governance and decision-making, promoting energy efficiency, scaling up climate investments, and capturing alternate knowledge streams (including indigenous and local lived experience).