Mid-Size Cities

Increasing urbanisation and climate change are among the greatest challenges of the 21st century. Cities cover only 1% of the Earth’s surface, but are home to about 50% of the global population (soon 60%). Accommodating more than three billion people, cities are major sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Up to 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions are estimated to originate in urban areas. Therefore, low carbon city strategies and concepts implicate large GHG mitigation potentials. As urbanisation in developing and emerging economies proceeds at a particular rapid pace, there is a high need of low carbon strategy and implementation processes in such countries and world regions.

Thus, the proposed scoping study aims to develop and establish blueprint strategies and implementation processes for sustainable energy technologies (SET) in pilot cities in developing and emerging countries which are part of a selected focus region. The blueprint strategies and processes will be based on a systematic evaluation of international low carbon city initiatives.

If the scoping study proves that the selected pilot cities indicate promising conditions for disseminating SETs, it will be followed by an implementation phase. The latter encompasses the set up, implementation and monitoring of SET pilot projects. These steps will be framed by learning and networking processes among the pilot cities and within the selected focus region.