Climate Governance and Urban Experiments

Hello, I'm Harriet Bulkeley. For over 15 years I've been investigating how cities around the
world are responding to climate change. As our cities grow, and the effects of climate
change become more serious, municipal governments and other actors have become more
concerned about what cities can do to combat the risks of climate change, and to reduce
their impact on the changing environment.

When cities first started to respond to climate change in the 1990s, - the 'Mark 1.0' version
if you like, the focus was on actions taken by municipal governments on a largely voluntary
basis. Plenty of plans and policies were developed to help cities meet ambitious targets for
reducing greenhouse gas emissions by over 20% in under a decade in some cases.

But municipal governments found themselves constrained in what they could do through
these routes alone. From the early 2000s, we can identify a new wave of action - Cities and
Climate Change 'Mark 2.0'. Over the past decade, we have seen a greater range and
diversity of cities getting involved with responses to climate change.

A number of city networks formed, through which municipal governments cooperate

internationally, and a whole host of partners from the private sector to civil society are
getting involved and trying to address climate change at the urban level. Part of the reason
for this shift is a change in how climate change is seen as a policy problem.

Rather than focusing on targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, we now see an
increasing emphasis on the need for decarbonization - that is, for uncoupling economic
growth and social wellbeing from the use of carbon-based fuels. As this requires a more
systematic change across urban areas and infrastructure networks, there has also been a
shift in how and where climate governance has taken place in the city.

Some of you may be familiar with the [children's book] hunt for 'Wally' or 'Waldo' A similar
hunt is now on for where we can find climate governance. As urban climate responses come
to focus on decarbonisation and a more diverse range of cities and actors get involved, we
can find the 'Waldorf' of climate governance not just in City Hall, in this case in London, or
in the corridors or walls of private sector organisations, such as the Co-op Tower in
Manchester with the largest solar facade in the UK, but also in the mundane design and
operation decisions being made in the provision of everyday services - waste, water,
transport, and energy. Decisions about whether we heat buildings to 21 degrees, or how
much space we allow for bikes on the streets, are also then climate decisions and political
decisions.

Looking at climate governance in this way has helped us to recognise a new phenomenon -
the growth of urban 'experiments' designed to respond to climate change.

In our search, we noticed that many of the responses that were being developed at the
urban scale were referred as 'innovations', 'living laboratories', test-beds and
'experiments'. What does this language of experimentation mean then?

It is not the same as the kind of experiment we might be used to - one carried out in a
controlled laboratory environment by a professional scientist. But rather it is a more
common way in which we use the term 'experiment' when we are trying out something new.
For example, a new haircut, a fashion look, or even a recipe for chocolate cake.

Cities are experimenting with responses to climate change as we are 'trying on for size'
new approaches to developing technology, organising society and planning urban
development. In a survey we conducted for a research project funded by the UK Economic
and Social Research Council, we found that in over 100 global cities, there were over 630
different urban climate change experiments taking place.

Interestingly, our work found that there was no region of the world more or less likely to
have such experiments in its cities - it seems that experimentation, as a response to climate
change, is now a global phenomenon.

Living in Sweden you soon notice how many kinds of urban experiments there are here. For
example, in Stockholm, there are innovations with smart grids and smart housing taking
place. In Malmö, some of the most radical approaches to urban planning that have put
decarbonisation on the agenda are happening in Western Harbor and in the new Hyllie
development, which aims to be carbon neutral. And just a short hop from Malmö over the
water to Copenhagen, many climate innovations are underway, including new measures to
increase the amount of cycling used as a proportion of modal share. For many, such
experiments might seem rather ephemeral because they're small in scale and often short
term - like a field of 1000 flowers blooming, they're here today, gone tomorrow. But our
research suggests that they are now so common that we have to take them seriously as a
site of climate governance and understand how and why urban actors are using this
approach rather than traditional methods of urban planning or policy to tackle climate
change.

So just why is experimentation taking place as a means of governing climate change at the
urban scale? We find three related explanations.

First, municipal governments have limited powers to act on climate change on their own and
need to develop projects or specific interventions that attract other organisations to work
with them. Second, private sector and community actors also find the urban environment as
an important site for action, but they lack the power or capacity to intervene at the level of
the city as a whole. And finally, projects that might have taken place in the past without
being thought about in climate change terms are increasingly seen through a climate change
lens.

So in a sense, climate change has come to be a ubiquitous reason for taking lots of different
and disparate forms of action at the urban level.

Like any response to climate change, urban experimentation is not neutral. It is political.
Some agendas and some interests are promoted over others, while others are marginalised.
We find that there are a lot of mainstream actors involved in experimentation, from
municipal governments to private sector interests, and international development funding.

This may mean that experimentation provides a means through which they can continue to
replicate business as usual. And some would argue that this will lead to the same patterns
of urban development that have led to the problems of climate change in the first place. But
it may also mean that experimentation provides a window through which the approaches
and practices of these organisations can be changed.

In my own research, I've continued to look into how these experiments can lead to new
best practice solutions that can reduce our carbon footprint and help us achieve new forms
of urban sustainability that are both environmentally effective and socially just.
Governance of Urban Sustainability Transitions – an introduction

Cities in Europe and around the world face a pressing challenge. How can I provide
economic prosperity and social cohesion while achieving environmental sustainability? In
response, new collaborations are emerging in cities across Europe in the form of urban
living labs. These are sites within cities like streets, buildings and districts that are
used to design, test and learn from social and technical innovation in real time
and in real places.

My name is Kes McCormick and I'm an Associate Professor at Lund University in Sweden.
Lund University is the coordinator for a new project exploring the governance of urban
sustainability transitions focusing on urban living labs. Our partners in this project
include Durham University in the UK, the Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands
and Joanneum Research in Austria, as well as local governments in cities across these
countries.

Urban living labs is spreading rapidly in Europe as a main through which public and
private actors are testing innovations in buildings, transport and energy systems.
Yet, despite the experimentation taking place on the ground, we lack systematic learning
across urban and national contexts about the impacts and effectiveness.

This project will bring together leading European partners to create a framework for
evaluating the design, practices and processes of urban living labs to enable the
comparative analysis of their potential and limits. The knowledge will be co-produced with
policy makers and practitioners with the explicit intention of providing new insights into the
governance of urban sustainability and improving the design and implementation of urban
living labs.
Governance of Urban Sustainability Transitions – discussions themes

An urban living lab is a local experiment to test new combinations of technologies, but
also new social activities in combination with technologies. A living laboratory means that
the subjects of your experiments are in this way the living beings, humans, or people. They
can be represented by various forms, can be a street, a building, can be a district in the city,
and so on.

But what we're interested in researching about urban living labs is the way in which these
deliberate interventions in cities are being used as a vehicle to try to address
sustainability challenges. We want to see the urban living lab as a new type of
experimental intervention that can have the potential to renew and revitalize urban
governance for cities.

We know that more people are living in cities today than ever before, and we know that we
have really strong sustainability issues to have to address. From water through to
congestion, through to how we use energy. This is exciting because urban living laboratories
are now being thought of as a way we can bring these things together really to improve the
urban environment for people.

PURPOSE: In a nutshell, GUST project hopes to achieve a better understanding on

the role of urban living labs. To develop structured with practice examples in order to
have a better knowledge about how to negotiate, how to manage living gaps in the future.
You look at a variety of urban living laboratories and see how effective they are in actually
trying to achieve these ambitions that they have to improve conditions around sustainability
and to foster learning. But at the same time is an experimental, so that means try
something that has not been tried before. A new approach to deal with a challenge, to deal
with a need that comes from urban societies.

By learning and knowing more about urban living labs, we can suggest pathways for
sustainability transitions in cities, not just in Europe, but in the whole world. So we'll be
looking both at the learning that's happening within cities, but also about how learning can
be transferred between cities. Is it possible to scale it up to share the lessons? Our ambition
is to not only understand what an urban living lab is about, but also what impact is going to
have for local governance.

EXAMPLES OF URBAN LIVING LAB: The City of Malmo. Milton Keynes. One from Vienna.
Veerkracht Carnisse in Rotterdam. The house called [inaudible] or sustainability was
designed to test the technology of using smart metering in the housing sector. Designs for
buildings that were energy-efficient were first tried out in Milton Keynes. Vienna has a
collection of citizens that have a migrant background. They haven't been in Austria. So they
are starting to initiate interactions through diversity, which means they are trying to make
our benefit out of diversity in a specific quarter. A neighborhood that has people live very
close to each other, but then there's all these disagreement about how to use the common
urban space. Eight families are now living there and they are collecting data on the use of
smart technologies, which the families were provided with on their instantaneous energy use
and water use and so on. Now Milton Keynes is undertaking a small grid demonstration
project, and other trials of different ways of using smart technology. So it's completely
different approach, but it's also living like because it's social innovation, it's interaction, it's
involvement of citizens, but involving also stakeholders. It's the city, it's some NGOs being
active there. But at the same time turning the tide towards more welcoming neighborhoods.
That they are one of the cases that we're going to be looking at and seeing whether there's
something about Milton Keynes history as a place of experimentation over time. That means
that urban living laboratories can work really well there, and what we might learn from their
past as well to take into the future around the design of urban living labs. Of course, it can't
be one setup of a living lab of how can we use space in a way that benefits different groups,
that brings environmental benefits and social benefits together.

GOALS AND KEY OUTPUTS OF THE WORK PACKAGE: My task as a work practice leader is to
try to bring together a whole set of different perspectives that we have in the literature
already and think about how they can be applied to understand the idea of urban living
laboratories. Developing case studies on living labs, you need case studies because living
labs are very complex phenomenon, so it's the best way to approach them and then to
conduct them in different countries, of course. We're going to look on the processes and the
mechanisms that urban living labs can sustain themselves over long time periods, and also
how they relate as an intervention, as a group of actors working and learning together with
their community around them. Basically we're the project leaders and we are there to
ensure that all the data that is collected and analyzed within the three other work packages
is consistent and feeding in each other's results. Also we are responsible for the
dissemination and communication of the results to companies, to NGOs, to general public,
and so on.
WWF Positive

Although it is crucial for every city to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions of their own
territory WWF emphasizes the importance of climate positive solutions to demonstrate the
cities potential impact on a larger society. And to encourage leadership of transformative
practices. To achieve climate positive solutions, a municipality should extend its ambitions to
other key actors in society and inspire actions beyond its own mandates and boundaries.

Uppsala is one of the Swedish cities with experience of such strategic and coordinated work.
In 2010 the city initiated the Uppsala Climate Protocol with the objective of securing the
cities long term climate and energy goals through the involvement of local and regional
decision makers.

The participant of the protocol are organizations with the successful track record and climate
and energy efficiency actions. From both the private and public sectors. Within the
framework of Uppsala's climate mitigation work, the Uppsala Climate Challenge, all
efforts are taken forward through systematic and community wide approach. Vaxjo is a
small Swedish municipality. Known internationally for its achievements in the area of climate
and energy. Due to its long experience and impressive results in production of CO2
emissions, Växjö is frequently visited by representatives from media, business, universities,
as well as, cities and governments from around the world.

As a result Vaxjo has taken the initiative to form an economic association called Sustainable
Småland. Based on the triple helix model which includes business, academia and the
public sector, all working to combine and cross fertilize the environmental know-how and
to promote it on the international market. Marketing itself as Scandinavia's International
capital.

Södertälje is another example of a city with a creative profile in the area of sustainable
urban development. A classical industrial city with a young and very multi-ethnic population
Södertälje's key issues are to engage youth and to establish successful partnerships with
business and industry in the area of climate and energy.

The municipally-owned Telga companies are ambitiously involved in climate and energy-
related projects within the energy, housing, and waste management sectors. Based on these
particular conditions, Södertälje may offer inspiration to other cities in similar situations
around the globe.
The Urban Green - Part 3

Seoul, the megacity and capital of South Korea has seen a remarkable positive change,
thanks to courageous green initiatives. The city has been recognized for its determination to
ramp up the use of renewable energy and building citizen engagement.

>> There are many diverse options and policies to combat the climate change issues. The
city like Seoul has more than 10 million citizens. So we should provide more environmental
transportations and also bring solutions to the buildings which are more environmental. But
most important thing is to mobilize the citizens' engagement and participation in this
process.

During our development period, there were too many roads and too many cars and citizens
accustomed to using cars. Instead, we should build more eco-friendly public transportation,
such as subways or bikes. So I really encourage the citizens to have their own ideas and
actions.

>> An impressive initiative by the city of Seoul is its goal to achieve 20% electricity self-
reliance by 2020. Obviously, renewable energy plays an important role in this transition.

AMSA PHOTOVOLTAIC POWER PLANT>> So the solar panels here are installed on top of a
filtering reservoir of the water purification plant. That filtering reservoir has a cooling effect.
So the solar panels become more efficient. So the average power generation hours in Seoul
is 3.1 or 3.2 hours per day. But here, thanks to that cooling effect, the figure is higher than
average, which is 3.7 or 8 hours per day. The Seoul Metropolitan Government has this
campaign of One Less Nuclear Power Plant. And this PV plant contributes to that campaign.
So we hope that this type of plant are distributed and expanded around Seoul city.

>> Along with renewable energy production, lowering a city's overall energy consumption,
by constructing buildings and houses that consume very little or no energy is key. One
approach is to use passive design.

THE SEOUL CITY HALL>> In any green building, the first thing we have to do is work on
passive design, maximizing the energy that we can get from passive design. Passive design
means we use a lot of insulation, we use special glass, and special curtain walls to make the
envelope optimal, so that the energy does not leak through the walls. Let nature work with
you, instead of trying to work against nature. Let nature cool us and heat us. Passive design
techniques allow us to do that, to tap the nature to provide us with our needs. One of the
great features of this building are these incredible green walls. It brings nature into our
urban environment and some scientists say that when we see green it just helps us feel
good and relieve our stress. On the whole roof top there's solar panels. So this building is
generating a lot of renewable energy to provide electricity to this building.