142 ■ CITIES AND CLIMATE CHANGE
fuel–based or renewable energy—can infl uence the GHG intensity of daily
decisions and the cumulative impact of the city on the global environment.
Governing urban infrastructures is, however, a complex matter. Frequently,
such systems lie outside the direct control of municipal governments, or, even
where they are supposedly the responsibility of local authorities, inadequate
funding combined with a lack of recognition of the rights of those living in
informal settlements (Satterthwaite 2008b, 11) can lead to their neglect. Th e
signifi cant sums of money involved in developing urban infrastructure systems
oft en require municipal governments to work in partnership with national gov-
ernments, private sector actors, and donor organizations, leading to potential
confl icts among priorities and problems of interagency coordination. In addi-
tion, the planning and development of urban-scale infrastructure systems can
take several decades to come to fruition and is frequently unable to predict or
track the sorts of social, economic, and environmental changes that might be
witnessed over such timescales.
Because of the long time horizons and large fi nancial investments involved,
issues of social and environmental justice are particularly pertinent in respond-
ing to climate change in the infrastructure sector. As Huq and others (2007, 14)
have argued, the “kinds of changes needed in urban planning and governance
to ‘climate proof ’ cities are oft en supportive of development goals. But ... they
could also do the opposite—as plans and investments to cope with storms and
sea-level rise forcibly clear the settlements that are currently on fl oodplains, or
the informal settlements that are close to the coast.” In equal measure, mitiga-
tion strategies, such as smart meters for demand reduction or the embedding
of energy-generation technologies in household infrastructure, could open up
new divides between those who are able to pay and participate in mitigation
measures and those for whom they will lead to new forms of social and eco-
nomic exclusion.
Self-governance
In general, the urban infrastructures that municipalities have direct control
over tend to be those through which the mitigation of climate change can be
addressed, and even here they remain rather small in scale. Some municipali-
ties have sought to shift their reliance on fossil fuel–based electricity provision
through national grids through the development of small-scale, decentral-
ized (off -grid) low-carbon or renewable energy systems. One example we fi nd
in our case studies is Melbourne, where, in addition to the Council House 2
project already discussed, which involves the production of renewable energy,
demonstration photovoltaic cells have been built on the roof of the city center’s
Queen Victoria Market—providing some electricity for the municipality but
also acting as a demonstration project as to what it might be possible to achieve.