Elsevier

Habitat International

Volume 50, December 2015, Pages 289-299
Habitat International

Evaluating low-carbon city initiatives from the DPSIR framework perspective

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2015.09.001Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Numerous cities have awareness of low-carbon plans and most of these plans are pressure-based and driver-oriented.

  • Most city plans recognise energy, transportation and building as the main driving forces for GHG emissions.

  • Low-carbon city initiatives require coherent approaches integrating technical, institutional and cognitional responses.

Abstract

Current low-carbon city initiatives were evaluated using the DPSIR (Driving forces-Pressures-State-Impacts-Responses) causal-effect framework for investigating interactions between environmental issues and human activities. For effective management towards achieving a low-carbon city, integrating the pressure-based, driver-oriented DPSIR approach could help decision makers examine whether greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction approaches deal with the root causes of GHG emissions and work towards low-carbon city development goals. The DPSIR framework was used on 36 global cities to analyse the socio-economic dynamics of GHG emissions and their pressures on the environment, the state of the environment, related climate change impacts and responses from society. The results indicated that numerous cities have awareness of low-carbon plans and that most of these plans are pressure-based and driver-oriented. Most city plans recognise energy, transportation and building as the main driving forces for GHG emissions, which cause environmental pressures, and highlight technical responses to reduce GHG emissions pressures from these root causes. In addition, most plans recognise institutional and cognitional responses to low-carbon city development, such as: policies and legislation; departmental planning and cooperation; measuring, monitoring and reporting performance; capital investment; community education and outreach; and stakeholder involvement.

Introduction

Human activities in cities contribute 80% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which are mainly responsible for the current climate change threat (Satterthwaite, 2008). Therefore, tackling climate change, reducing GHG emissions and transforming development towards the low-carbon city have become world-wide actions. By 2010, dozens of cities around the world had launched their own low-carbon initiatives aiming to reduce GHG emissions by 2020 (Gomi, Shimada, & Matsuoka, 2010).

An increasing number of studies are now focussing on evaluating existing government climate action plans and city low-carbon plans around the world. For example, in the USA, Wheeler (2008) evaluated the goals and approaches of climate change plans from the Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) campaign, while Tang, Brody, Quinn, Chang, and Wei (2010) measured the comprehensive quality of local climate change action plans with three components: awareness, analysis and action. Finn and McCormick (2011) selected the climate change plans for New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago as cases to assess their strategies; Saavedra and Budd (2009) evaluated the plan for Washington State; and Brody and Highfield (2005) analysed plan implementation in Florida. Studies in the UK (Heidrich, Dawson, Reckien, & Walsh, 2013) have investigated climate preparedness measures such as national and international agreements, climate initiatives, mitigation and adaptation measures, and GHG reduction targets.

Moreover, some researchers have examined the empirical lessons to be learnt from the developing world, especially India and China. For example, Aggarwal (2013) devised long-term climate adaptation policy strategies through analysing the climate change action plan for Delhi, while Wang et al., 2011, Khanna et al., 2014, Lo, 2014 and Yu (2014) evaluated low-carbon city initiatives in China. These studies discuss relevant policies and plans with targets, scopes and supporting measures at local level. Their results show that low-carbon city development is the solution to the environmental challenges in China, but that low-carbon plans still face poor implementation.

Although many previous evaluations have focused on policy responses such as assessing low-carbon targets, climate change solutions and plan implementation, few have investigated the links between these responses and their influences on the environment. Among policy makers, the lack of research in this area may result in insufficient reflection on whether the current low-carbon actions are on the right track to reduce GHG emissions and adapt to climate change challenges.

To address these gaps, the present study aims to provide policy makers and urban planners with information on the current low-carbon initiatives, underlining gaps between existing planning and the low-carbon city development goal. Particular focus is placed on evaluating low-carbon responses from technical, institutional and cognitional perspectives and on identifying where responses are directed to address the root causes of GHG emissions by using the DPSIR (Driving forces-Pressures-State-Impacts-Responses) framework.

The main research questions are: (1) Do current low-carbon city initiatives address the driving forces (root causes) of the GHG emissions problem? and (2) Do current low-carbon city initiatives provide coherent approaches from technical, institutional and cognitional perspectives with the purpose of reducing GHG emissions?

The DPSIR framework is a conceptual model for understanding complex interactions between socio-economic and ecological systems (Ness, Anderberg, & Olsson, 2010). The role of this framework is to structure environmental phases and prepare indicators for reporting, e.g. the European Environmental Agency (EEA) has used it for regular monitoring and reporting on the state of the environment and policy performance (Kristensen, 2004). In addition, increasing numbers of researchers are using the framework in environmental management, especially for helping policy makers assess and monitor environmental trends (Song & Frostell, 2012).

Nowadays, the low-carbon city is widely accepted as a means to tackle climate change and many cities have announced their targets for GHG emissions reductions in practice (Kennedy & Sgouridis, 2011). For effective management towards a low-carbon city, integrating the DPSIR framework into low-carbon city plans can help decision-making, GHG management and monitoring. As low-carbon city development aims to reduce GHG emissions, the DPSIR framework is suitable for illustrating the socio-economic dynamics between driving forces for emissions, environmental pressures caused by emissions, environmental state changes, environmental impacts and social responses to combat emissions.

A general DPSIR framework has a broad scope. It contains all types of information in the socio-economic system and ecosystem. For low-carbon city development, the indicators of DPSIR are defined as follows:

  • D (driving forces) indicators reflect the human activities in cities that affect the environment, e.g. energy consumption from socio-economic activities in urban sectors such as transportation, building, industry, land use, agriculture, forestry and waste (IPCC, 2014).

  • P (pressures) indicators reflect the environmental stress exerted by human activities in the urban area, e.g. GHG emissions.

  • S (state) indicators reflect the current physical, biological and chemical state of the environment, e.g. air, ecosystem and water quality problems attributable to GHG emitted to the atmosphere (UNEP, 2012).

  • I (impacts) indicators reflect influences on ecosystems, human health and the human built environment due to state changes, e.g. climate change.

  • R (responses) indicators reflect social responses to the environmental issues, such as policies and strategies to reduce GHG emissions.

Section snippets

Overview of methodology

Four steps were used in the present study (Table 1). In step one, world-wide low-carbon city plans were selected for evaluation. In step two, low-carbon city approaches were summarised using international guides and the plans selected in step one. In step three, the approaches summarised were categorised into a DPSIR framework based on the causal chain analysed. Finally, content analysis was used to evaluate the selected plans in step four.

Selection of plans (step 1)

The low-carbon initiatives selected for evaluation in

Results and discussion

This section presents and discusses the results from the content analysis of the responses found in low-carbon city development plans classified as technical, cognitive and institutional.

Conclusions

The climate change threat, an urgent challenge to future sustainability, now features strongly on the international agenda. Local governments have been taking initiatives to tackle climate change and move to a low-carbon future. To provide policy makers and urban planners with new reflections regarding the current low-carbon initiatives, this study used the DPSIR framework to evaluate the responses reflected in existing global low-carbon city initiatives for 36 cities world-wide. Based on a

Acknowledgements

Guanghong Zhou and Jiechen Wu would like to thank China Scholarship Council for financial support. Financial support from KTH Royal Institute of Technology for the other authors is greatly acknowledged. We gratefully acknowledge the valuable comments from the editor and the reviewer in the reviewing process.

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