European Cities Moving Towards Climate Neutrality Evaluation and Indicators Towards Climate Neutral Urban Districts in Europe Louise Årman, PhD Candidate KTH Royal Institute of Technology Turin, Italy 25 th of September 2014

The Academic Partners in CLUE and Focus Areas The university component in CLUE have been a collaboration between KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden) Delft University of Technology (The Netherlands) Edinburgh Napier University (United Kingdom) Focus on methods and tools for CLUEs within the areas of scenario development and participation (TU Delft), benchmarking (Napier) and evaluation (KTH) for CLUEs

The Challenges with CLUEs, some examples  Very new area, no unified definition of climate neutrality exists and it is still in an ongoing process to clarify this.  System boundaries, what should be included on a district scale?  Very few implemented practical real cases, however many on the way

Important to know were to aim with an evaluation and what the indicators should represent CLUEs pose potential barriers as the subjects is not fully defined Very important with transparency with regards to system boarders, indicators and scope No specific indicators for CLUEs are designed, however countless of already existing indicators could be used if done with care Evaluation towards CLUEs, the basics

GHG Accounting, the issues of system boundaries Temporal boundary – The temporal boundary defines when the time period for the accounting of emissions starts and end. Activity boundary – outlines the activities in the city resulting in GHG emissions that the city should account for within a given scope Geographical boundary – defines “internal” and “external emissions” Lifecycle boundary – determines to which extend emissions from production and disposal of goods, used for any activity in the city, are accounted. Source: Kennedy and Sgouridis, 2011

GHG Accounting, the issues of system boundaries (continued) Scope 1 - Internal Emissions. Emissions produced within the geographical/spatial boundary of the urban district and from its core activities Scope 2: Core External Emissions. Emissions produced outside the spatial boundary of the district, but as a direct result of core activities within it. Scope 3: Noncore Emission. All external emissions that are due to product or service consumption by the residents of the urban area. Source: (World Resources Institute and World Business Council for Sustainable Development, 2004; Kennedy and Sgouridis, 2011

The Diversity of GHG Accounting Systems, some examples National level  IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories City and regional level  The GHG Protocol Initiative Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard  The draft Corporate Value Chain (Scope3) Accounting and Reporting Standard  Bilan Carbone – Methodological Guide for Companies and Local Authorities developed by the Agence de l’Environment et de la Maitrise de l’Energie  Covenant of Mayors  Greenhouse Gas Regional Inventory Protocol (GRIP)  UNEP, International Standard for Reporting Greenhouse Gas Emissions for Cities and Regions by UNEP, UN-HABITAT and the World Bank

The CCI framework, an accounting tool designed for the district scale. Baseline Data Collection Process Baseline Review Roadmap Efficiencies Fuel Switching (Credits) Climate Positive Source: Johansson et al., 2012

 Since the issues of CLUEs and climate neutrality is not fully defined no generic indicators for this are available  Many already existing indicators can be used as a starting point for indication and evaluation of climate neutrality  Transparency is needed with regards to system boundaries and what to include in the evaluation process and indicators for CLUEs, without, evaluation results may be misguiding  Many interesting ongoing cases exist within the CLUE project, the future is interesting  Several existing accounting system exist but lack clarity and harmonization which make comparison very difficult Summery

Thank you!