Low carbon cities and behavioral
change
3rd LCS Workshop, Tokyo, Japan, 13th-15th February, 2008

Shobhakar Dhakal
Executive Director, Global Carbon Project
GCP Tsukuba International Project Officec/o National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES)
Onogawa 16-2, Tsukuba, Japan 305 8506
E-mail: shobhakar.dhakal@nies.go.jp

www.globalcarbonproject.org
www.gcp-urcm.org

National Institute forEnvironmentalStudies
www.nies.go.jp

International Scientific Programs on Global
Environmental Change Science
International offices
NIES, Tsukuba
CSIRO, Canberra

Amsterdam Declaration of 2001
ESSP 2006 Beijing Conference

Urban andRegionalcarbonManagementInitiativeUrban and Regional Carbon Management Initiative• Mexico City Conference in September 2006
• Thematic workshops– Institutional dimensions (with IHDP) on 5thDecember 2006 in Bali
– Urbanization and urban development pathways(with IIASA) on 28-30th March 2007 in Tsukuba• Science Policy interfacing– UNFCCC COP-12 side-event (with ECN Policy
Studies Netherlands) on 15th November 2006 inNairobi– UNFCCC COP-13 side-event (with Asian Institute ofTechnology) on 6th December 2007 in Bali

• Urban energy-emission modeling– A workshop on modeling low-carbon society (withAsia Energy-Environment Modeling Forum) on 3031 May 2007 in Beijing– A symposium and workshop on urban carbon
modeling on Feb 4-6, 2008 at Bangkok.

“Carbon Neutral Event”

International Symposium on

Urban Energy and Carbon Management: Challenges for
Science and Policy
February 4, 2008, AIT Centre, Pathumthani, Thailand

International Workshop on

Urban Energy and Carbon Modeling
February 5-6, 2008, AIT Centre, Pathumthani, Thailand

National Institute for Environmental Studies

“The Nation” 5 Feb 2008 Thailand

The global “urban” challenge• Present:– ~ 50% urban population, activities in cities generatelarge share of global GDP, consume a significant
share of commercial energy and emit a large share of
global CO2 emissions• Next 3 decades:– CO2 per capita in cities of developed countries
already high and will resist to decline– 1.8 billion added urban population in next 25 years
mostly in developing countries where rate ofenergy/carbon growth will be at highest

Scientific and policy response to urban energy
and carbon challenges has been inadequate• Importance is well realized but not pursued• Energy and carbon related research as well as existing
policies have largely ignored “urban” as a unit of concern
or analyses• Reductionst approach– Tackling the individual pieces (sectors or fuels)– No attentions to higher order “urban system integration” andpotentials for optimization that are needed for “deep cut”

• Lack of mechanism to collect and develop informationbase at urban scale• Weaker knowledge on linkages of past urban
development pathways and carbon, and unclear visionsof future urban carbon scenarios and pathways

Individual behavior matters…….
• Energy saving• Less material consumption• Public transport over private transport• Choice of how we like to live in physical space• Do we really know what shapes ourenvironmental behavior? A Nobel Prize question

CO2 Balance, million t-CO2 (2)300
Embodied CO2 in export
250
Embodied CO2 in capital formation
200
Embodied CO2 in final consumption
150
Embodied CO2 in imported products
100
Embodied CO2 in imported products
50
CO2 in energy supply
0T okyo inflow Tokyo inflow Tokyo inflow(1985)(1990)(1995)

Tokyooutflow(1985)

Tokyooutflow(1990)

T okyooutflow(1995)

Carbon footprint: 4.44 for 1995
Source: Shinji Kaneko, Hiroshima University, 2007

Limitation of current debate on behavioral
change towards low carbon cities• Unclear vision of low carbon city in next 100 year – thatsolely depend on our envisioned behavior• Our discussion focus on Incremental change !!
Conventional way is not sufficient• Behavioral change discussions are often technology
dominated, price-tagged and top down and lacks
psychology, various attributes of personal choiceassociated with individuals’ irrationalities to price signals• Behavior change process in cities will not be linear –there will be surprises, critical mass effect, and tipping
points• Behavioral shift and levers for change has to bedramatically different in post-modern nations anddeveloping nations (generality vs. specificity)Who to lead towards change?
• Current urban carbon management debate is largely
municipal-centric which is “necessary” but not “sufficient”– Can influence only a small fraction of emissions from “city” even indeveloped countries– Cannot really address emissions from “city” in developing countries• Who to lead towards low carbon cities?
– Government at multiple levels are key actor• Local, state, national government educating people and setting
operational framework (education, technology, economics andregulation)– Role of non-governmental actors• Business: shaping choice, provide alternatives and promoting green
business• Citizen groups: campaign to make rational choices• Media: educate and inform public; put political pressure– Multi-scale governance is required based on who have what wedgeof policy influence – national government needs to play their role andshould be engaged in urban carbon management debate globallyNo silver bullets !!
• Behavioral change is long process …. not wellunderstood…but we need to start acting now• Best first steps for behavioral chnage:– Shaping and framing the problem in relevance tosociety in-large addressing not “symptoms” but“underlying drivers”– Engage the public to know their visions for acceptable
low carbon city scenario– Try with various price signals and test with various
easy-to-do carbon friendly infrastructure that avoid“lock-in”• Is level of price that can affect behavior acceptable?

– Political championship by developed world for speedychange and giving momentum