INTRODUCTION: CITIES AND THE URGENT CHALLENGES ■ 7these communities proceeding even as global climate change negotiations have
made limited progress. Cities are leading and positioning themselves as a sig-
nifi cant part of the solution. Although cities in the industrialized world such as
Chicago, London, or New York City are oft -cited examples, cities across various
developing countries, such as Cape Town, Mexico City, and São Paulo, are also
rising to the challenge. Climate change mitigation plans and responses do vary
among cities, as shown in the examples studied by Croci and others—London
has adopted a long-term emissions reduction goal with intermediate steps, New
York City and Milan have chosen medium-term targets, and Bangkok and Mex-
ico City have shorter-term targets for 2012. All of this is encouraging, because cit-
ies off er humanity the best way to effi ciently provide critical services and allocate
increasingly scarce resources.
Th e importance of governance for climate action in cities is demonstrated
clearly by Bulkeley and others in their chapter, “Th e Role of Institutions, Gov-
ernance and Planning for Mitigation and Adaptation by Cities.” Th e authors
provide a comprehensive global review of the current state of mitigation and
adaptation action by cities, focusing mainly on cities in the global South.
Selected case studies include Beijing, Cape Town, Hong Kong, New Delhi,
Melbourne, Mexico City, Mumbai, São Paulo, Seoul, and Yogyakarta. Th ey
examine how these cities are taking action in three key sectors: buildings,
transport, and urban infrastructure. Issues of governance are dominant when
it comes to regulating GHG emissions, providing services, and working with
other jurisdictions. Key factors that shape responses to mitigation at the local
level include eff ective policy making, access to additional fi nance, the con-
gruence between jurisdictional areas and the spatial scale at which problems
present themselves, and municipal competencies in key areas such as energy,
planning, and transport. Governance at the city scale matters, as do the links
and relationships with institutional and governance arrangements at other
spatial scales.
Fast-growing cities off er enormous opportunities for investments in new
energy-effi cient technologies and for increasing the amount of energy from
alternative and renewable energy sources. As demonstrated in the chapter by
Croci and others, the energy sector usually off ers the greatest potential, with
cities’ mitigation eff orts accordingly focused on promoting energy effi ciency
(particularly through standards and regulations for buildings) and striving for
lower carbon intensity in the energy supply. Across most cities, transport is
the second most important sector, with policies focused on encouraging pub-
lic transportation instead of the private automobile. Many symposium papers
refl ected the wide-ranging body of research on green buildings and energy
effi ciency. Th ese include low-energy redevelopment in Rotterdam (van den
Dobbelsteen and others), options for increasing energy effi ciency in Nigerian