The University of Manchester Research
Integration of mitigation and adaptation in urban climate
change action plans in Europe: A systematic assessment
DOI:
10.1016/j.rser.2019.109623
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Citation for published version (APA):
Grafakos, S., Viero, G., Reckien, D., Trigg, K., Vigiue, V., Sudmant, A., Graves, C., Foley, A., Heidrich, O.,
Mirailles, J., Carter, J., Chang, L., Nador, C., Liseri, M., Chelleri, L., Orru, H., Orru, K., Aelenei, R., Bilska, A., ...
Dawson, R. (2020). Integration of mitigation and adaptation in urban climate change action plans in Europe: A
systematic assessment. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 121, [109623].
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2019.109623
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Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews
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Integration of mitigation and adaptation in urban climate change action plans in
Europe: A systematic assessment
S. Grafakos, G. Viero, D. Reckien, K. Trigg, V. Viguie, A. Sudmant, C. Graves, A.
Foley, O. Heidrich, J.M. Mirailles, J. Carter, L.H. Chang, C. Nador, M. Liseri, L.
Chelleri, H. Orru, K. Orru, R. Aelenei, A. Bilska, B. Pfeiffer, Q. Lepetit, J.M. Church,
M. Landauer, A. Gouldson, R. Dawson
PII: S1364-0321(19)30830-5
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2019.109623
Reference: RSER 109623
To appear in:
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews
Received Date: 10 February 2019
Revised Date: 7 November 2019
Accepted Date: 23 November 2019
Please cite this article as: Grafakos S, Viero G, Reckien D, Trigg K, Viguie V, Sudmant A, Graves C,
Foley A, Heidrich O, Mirailles JM, Carter J, Chang LH, Nador C, Liseri M, Chelleri L, Orru H, Orru K,
Aelenei R, Bilska A, Pfeiffer B, Lepetit Q, Church JM, Landauer M, Gouldson A, Dawson R, Integration
of mitigation and adaptation in urban climate change action plans in Europe: A systematic assessment,
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews (2019), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2019.109623.
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1
Integration of mitigation and adaptation in urban climate change
action plans in Europe:
A systematic assessment
Author names and affiliations: Grafakos, S.
1,2
, Viero, G.
3
, Reckien, D.
4
, Trigg, K.
1
, Viguie,
V.
5
, Sudmant, A.
6
, Graves, C.
6
, Foley, A.
7
, Heidrich, O.
8
, Mirailles, J.M.
9
, Carter, J.
10
, Chang,
L.H.
11
, Nador, C.
12
, Liseri, M.
1
, Chelleri, L.
13
, Orru, H.
14
, Orru, K.
15
, Aelenei, R.
16
, Bilska, A.
17
,
Pfeiffer, B.
4
, Lepetit, Q.
4
, Church, J.M.
18
, Landauer, M.
19, 20
, Gouldson, A.
6
, Dawson, R.
8
1 = Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies, Burgemeester Oudlaan 50, 3062
PA, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
2= Global Green Growth Institute, 21-15 Jeongdong-gil, Jung-gu, 4518, Seoul, South Korea
3 = ECOR by Noble Environmental Technologies, Noorderpoort 30, 5916 PJ, Venlo, The
Netherlands
4 = University of Twente, PO Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands
5 = CIRED, Site du Jardin Tropical, 45bis, Av de la Belle Gabrielle, F-94736 Nogent-sur-
Marne, France
6 = The University of Leeds, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds,
LS2 9JT, United Kingdom
7 = Queen's University Belfast, School of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Queen’s
University Belfast, Ashby Building, Stranmillis Road, Belfast BT9 5AH, United Kingdom
8 = Newcastle University, School of Engineering, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change,
Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, United Kingdom
9 = Ramboll, Hannemanns Allé 53, DK-2300 Copenhagen S, Denmark
10 = University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M139PL, United Kingdom
11 = Greenpeace, Chongqing South Road, 10045, Taipei City, Taiwan
12 = Independent researcher
13 = Universitat Internacional de Catalunya UIC, School of Architecture, Inmaculada 22,
08017, Barcelona, Spain
14 = Institute of Family Medicine and Public Health, University of Tartu, Ravila 19, 50411,
Tartu, Estonia
15 = Institute of Social Sciences, University of Tartu, Lossi 36, 51003, Tartu, Estonia
16 = Independent researcher
17 = Poznan Municipal Town Planning Office, Dworcowa 16 b, 62-007 Biskupice, Poland
(private address)
18 = Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne, 57 rue Pierre Taittinger 51571 Reims
Cedex, France
19 = University of Lapland, Arctic Centre, P.O. Box 122 (Pohjoisranta 4), 96101 Rovaniemi,
Finland
20 = International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Risk and Resilience
Program, Schlossplatz 1, A-2361, Laxenburg, Austria
1
corresponding author details, stelios.grafakos@gggi.org. Present address Global Green Growth
Institute, 21-15 Jeongdong-gil, Jung-gu, 4518, Seoul, South Korea
2
Abstract: Cities are major drivers of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions--
the sources of anthropocentric climate change, whilst also concentrating people, buildings,
and infrastructures and therefore potential risk and impacts of the latter. As a consequence,
planning for climate change in urban areas does not only provide the opportunity but should
necessitate considering interactions between mitigation and adaptation actions. However,
existing research found that only a minority of urban areas consider both mitigation and
adaptation in their climate action plans, i.e. 147 Climate Change Action Plans (CCAPs) were
identified among a representative sample of 885 European cities. We investigate these 147
CCAPs to understand the degree of integration of adaptation and mitigation and draw
implications for the maximization of synergies and co-benefits of such a combined approach.
Using the developed scoring framework to evaluate the level of integration of CCAPs, the
research finds that most of the plans reveal a 'moderate' level of integration. Moderate
integration characterizes a plan that identifies sources of emissions and vulnerabilities to
climate change, as well as some qualitative consideration of the synergies, but one that
lacks a systematic consideration of potential integration opportunities. Furthermore, the
analysis reveals that one of the main gaps of the evaluation and implementation of more
integrated climate change actions in cities is the insufficient quantitative evaluation of the
costs and funding schemes for adaptation and mitigation action implementation.
Keywords: urban; planning; European cities; interrelationships; synergies; co-benefits;
scoring; evaluation
Word Count: 10,000 (maximum for a Review article)
List of abbreviations including units and nomenclature:
Ad/Mit Adaptation/Mitigation
AMIA tool Adaptation and Mitigation Interaction Assessment tool
CCAPs Climate Change Action Plans
CCPC Cities for Climate Protection Campaign
EC European Commission
EU European Union
GHGs Greenhouse gases
ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability
UA Urban Audit
UCCII Urban Climate Change Integration Index
UK United Kingdom
1. Introduction
Preventing dangerous climate change will require immediate and effective action to mitigate
greenhouse gas emissions [1]. Furthermore, ongoing and historical emissions and the long
timescales over which these emissions affect the climate will require adaptation actions to
manage the risks of committed climate change [2].
Globally, cities have emerged as leading climate change adaptation and mitigation actors,
reflecting both a shift towards a more bottom-up approach to climate action (as seen in the
Paris Agreement) and the unique capacities of urban policymakers to implement climate
3
policies [3]. For example, in 2018, nearly 8,000 urban areas and other local and regional
administrations from every continent (excluding Antarctica), representing almost 10% of the
global population, had set greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction targets for their local
territories [4]. Likewise, global adaptation efforts are increasing, in particular in large and
economically strong cities. Climate adaptation is defined as “the process of adjustment to
actual or expected climate and its effects” while mitigation is defined as “a human
intervention to reduce the sources or enhance the sinks of greenhouse gases (GHGs)” [1].
Integration of these two dimensions of climate policy may provide far-reaching benefits [5],
especially in cities [1, 6], with the potential of enhancing synergies and reducing conflicts.
The latter can lead to more cost-efficient outcomes, and avoid maladaptation (the “problem
of increasing risks from adaptation” [7, p211]) as well as malmitigation (i.e. increasing risks
from mitigation)[8][]. Furthermore, sources of funding can be collated, knowledge can be
consolidated, and more holistic, systems-based approaches can be implemented [9].
Realising these benefits requires a better understanding of the progress that urban areas
may have made in integrating climate actions [10]. Previous research has shown that cities
have started to take actions towards a more integrated approach in climate change planning
[11, 12, 13], although only a minority of cities' action plans considered both climate policies
and even fewer implement integrated adaptation and mitigation plans [14].
To redress this knowledge gap, this study reviews and evaluates 147 CCAPs from a sample
of 885 cities in Europe [7, 49]. The 885 cities are regionally representative according to
population shares across European countries and covers both large and medium-sized
cities. Of these 885 cities, 147 cities (17%) have undertaken both adaptation and mitigation
planning in an integrated manner. Of the other 738 cities, 62 (7%) had separate adaptation
and mitigation plans and 376 (42%) had only a mitigation plan. Only 12 cities (1%) had just
an adaptation plan, whilst 288 (33%) lacked any form of stand-alone local climate plan [7].
Reckien et al. [7] identify a number of factors that can influence the development and
integration of local climate plans, which include national level policies (for both developing
and integrating plans) and membership of international climate networks (for developing
plans, however not necessarily a driver for integration). However, this work did not analyse
the levels of integration between adaptation and mitigation, or the potential drivers, barriers,
advantages and possible drawbacks of integrating mitigation and adaptation planning.
This study builds upon this research by 1) evaluating the level of integration of adaptation
and mitigation in local Climate Change Action Plans (CCAPs) in Europe; 2) identifying the
synergies and co-benefits of integration of adaptation and mitigation; and, 3) distilling best
practices for other municipalities. Following this introduction, Section 2 explores the existing
literature on the integration of mitigation and adaptation planning in the urban context.
Section 3 describes the evaluation framework that has been developed. Section 4 presents
the results and Section 5 evaluates and discusses them in the broader context of the
literature before concluding in Section 6.
2. Literature review
Integrated mitigation and adaptation planning shifted from national [16, 17, 18] to local
planning in the early 2000s [15] following evidence of significant synergies between different
climate action approaches [19, 20, 10]. These studies established the scale and importance
of synergies and possible conflicts and trade-offs between adaptation and mitigation
