Co-benefits and Co-costs of Climate Action Plans for Low-Carbon Cities

Abstract

City-level climate action plans are often designed to address specific issues such as to cut GHG emissions from traffic congestion. The benefits from such plans would include the direct effects of reducing contributions by cities to global atmospheric GHG concentrations. Additional benefits may be present in the form of energy savings, reduced air pollution, improved public health, and many more. The presence of such co-benefits (and of co-costs) may affect the rank-ordering of particular actions when they are compared against each other. This chapter provides a structured approach to the assessment of co-benefits and co-costs, and their implications for selection among climate actions. Using network analysis we assess existing urban climate action plans from around the world, focusing on the notion of co-benefits and co-costs. We find notable similarities and differences in the way co-benefits and co-costs guide urban climate plans, and we offer guidance for the social discourse on prioritization of strategies.