Urban Climate Change Mitigation in Europe: Looking at and beyond the Role of Population Density
Publication: Journal of Urban Planning and Development
Volume 140, Issue 1
Abstract
As climate change mitigation becomes pervasive on all spatial scales, mitigation options related to urban spatial planning and behavioral change become increasingly important. Because transport energy consumption seems to scale inversely with population density, increased attention focuses on the role of urban form. This study specifically analyzes the importance of population density for the reduction of urban greenhouse gas emissions in Europe. For this, drivers of both carbon dioxide () emissions from transport (for 134 cities) and total urban greenhouse gas emissions (eq emissions) of 62 cities across Europe are investigated. Results indicate that population density is not, per se, a strong determinant of greenhouse gas emissions in European cities. Crucially, the spatial scale of the analysis matters and national influences modulate eq emissions in the analyzed urban areas. Results show that greenhouse gas emissions of European urbanites increase significantly with decreasing household sizes and increasing personal wealth. Although the results are bound by data quality, it is assumed that the relative similarity of European cities is also leading to a lesser degree of importance of population density with respect to climate change mitigation. The results further encourage more thorough analyses of the role of household size and personal wealth for effective mitigation of climate change, additional spatially explicit econometric studies, and detailed, city-specific causal models of urban areas.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
Backhaus, K., Erichson, B., Plinke, W., and Weiber, R. (2010). Multivariate Analysemethoden: Eine anwendungsorientierte Einführung, Springer, Berlin (in German).
Balk, D., Brickman, M., Anderson, B., Pozzi, F., and Yetman, G. (2005). “A global distribution of future population: Estimates to 2015.” Center for International Earth Science Information Network, Columbia University, Palisades, NY.
Balk, D. L., Deichmann, U., Yetman, G., Pozzi, F., Hay, S. I., and Nelson, A. (2006). “Determining global population distribution: Methods, applications and data.” Adv. Parasitol., 62, 119–156.
Barrett, G. (1996). “The transport dimension.” The compact city: A sustainable urban form? E&FN Spon Publishers, London, 177–180.
Bhatia, P., and Ranganathan, J. (2004). The greenhouse Gas protocol: A corporate accounting and reporting standard (Revised Edition), World Resources Institute, Washington, DC.
BizEE Software. (2011). “Heating and cooling degree days—Free worldwide data calculation.” 〈http://www.degreedays.net/〉 (Jul. 27, 2012).
Black, J. (1996). “Higher density housing and transport in Australian cities.” Transport, land use and the environment, Chapter 4, Kluwer Academic Publisher, Dordrecht, The Netherlands.
Breheny, M. (1995). “The compact city and transport energy-consumption.” Trans. Inst. Br. Geogr., 20(1), 81–101.
Brown, M. A. (1984). “Change mechanisms in the diffusion of residential energy conservation practices: an empirical study.” Technol. Forecast. Soc. Change, 25(2), 123–138.
Cervero, R. (1988). “Land-use mixing and suburban mobility.” Transport. Q., 42(3), 429–446.
Crawley, M. J. (2005). “Statistics: an introduction using R.” Wiley, Chichester, West Sussex.
Creutzig, F., Mühlhoff, R., and Römer, J. (2012a). “Decarbonizing urban transport in European cities: four cases show possibly high co-benefits.” Environ. Res. Lett., 7(4), 1–9.
Creutzig, F., Thomas, A., Kammen, D. M., and Deakin, E. (2012b). “Transport demand management in Beijing, China: Progress and challenges.” Low carbon transport in Asia: Capturing climate and development co-benefits, E. Zusman, A. Srinivasan and S. Dhakal, eds., Earthscan, London, 135–158.
Easton, M. (2008). “Mark Easton’s U.K.: Map of the week: Crowded Britain?” 〈http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2008/09/map_of_the_week_crowded_britai.html〉 (Jul. 6, 2012).
ECO Region [Computer software]. Zurich, Switzerland, ECOSPEED AG.
European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC)/Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL). (2009). “Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR), release version 4.0.” EDGAR v.4.0—Overview, 〈http://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/overview.php?v=40〉 (Jul. 4, 2012).
European Environment Agency (EEA). (2006). “Urban sprawl in Europe—The ignored challenge.”, EEA, Copenhagen, Denmark.
European Network of Construction Companies for Research, and Development. (2011). “ and Sustainability.” 〈http://www.encord.org/?page_id=210〉 (Jul. 22, 2011).
Eurostat. (2011a). “GISCO—das geografische Informationssystem der Kommission.” 〈http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/gisco_Geographical_information_maps/introduction〉 (Jul. 20, 2012).
Eurostat. (2011b). “Data explorer.” 〈http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/statistics/search_database〉 (Jul. 20, 2012).
Ewing, R. H., Bartholomew, K., Winkelman, S., Walters, J., and Chen, D. (2007). Growing cooler: The evidence on urban development and climate change, Urban Land Institute, Chicago.
Ewing, R. H., and Cervero, R. (2010). “Travel and the built environment.” J. Am. Plann. Assoc., 76(3), 265–294.
Feng, L., and Li, H. (2012). “Spatial pattern analysis of urban sprawl: Case study of Jiangning, Nanjing, China.” J. Urban Plann. Dev., 263–269.
Fraley, C., and Raftery, A. E. (2007). “Model-based methods of classification: Using the mclust software in chemometrics.” J. Stat. Software, 18(6), 1–13.
Gabriel, M., Watson, P., Ong, R., Wood, G., and Wulff, M. (2010). “The environmental sustainability of Australia’s private rental housing stock.” Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, Melbourne.
Holtzclaw, J., Clear, R., Dittmar, H., Goldstein, D., and Haas, P. (2002). “Location efficiency: Neighborhood and socio-economic characteristics determine auto ownership and use—Studies in Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco.” Transport Plann. Tech., 25(1), 1–27.
Hoornweg, D., Sugar, L., and Trejos Gomez, C. L. (2011). “Cities and greenhouse gas emissions: Moving forward.” Environ. Urban., 23(1), 207–227.
Huang, J., Lu, X., and Sellers, J. (2007). “A global comparative analysis of urban form: Applying spatial metrics and remote sensing.” Landsc. Urban Plann., 82(4), 184–197.
International Energy Agency. (2011). “Prospect of limiting the global increase in temperatures to 2°C is getting bleaker.” Latest information, 〈http://www.iea.org/newsroomandevents/news/2011/may/name,19839,en.html〉 (Jul. 14, 2011).
Kennedy, C., et al. (2009a). “Greenhouse gas emissions from global cities.” Environ. Sci. Tech., 43(19), 7297–7302.
Kennedy, C., et al. (2009b). “Methodology for inventorying greenhouse gas emissions from global cities.” Energy Pol., 38(9), 4828–4837.
Kenworthy, J. R., and Laube, F. B. (1996). “Automobile dependence in cities: An international comparison of urban transport and land use patterns with implications for sustainability.” Environ. Impact Assess. Rev., 16(4–6), 279–308.
Kenworthy, J. R., Laube, F. B., and Vivier, J. (2001). Millennium cities database for sustainable transport, International Union of Public Transport and Murdoch University, Institute for Sustainability and Technology Policy, Murdoch, Australia.
Khan, U. (2008). “England is most crowded country in Europe.” 〈http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/2967374/England-is-most-crowded-country-in-Europe.html〉 (Jul. 06, 2012).
Lankao, P. R. (2007). “Are we missing the point? Particularities of urbanization, sustainability and carbon emissions in Latin American cities.” Environ. Urbanization, 19(1), 159–175.
MATLAB [Computer software]. MathWorks, Natick, MA.
Mindali, O., Raveh, A., and Salomon, I. (2004). “Urban density and energy consumption: A new look at old statistics.” Transport Res. Pol. Pract., 38(2), 143–162.
Newman, P. W. G., and Kenworthy, J. R. (1989). “Gasoline consumption and cities—A comparison of U.S. cities with a global survey.” J. Am. Plann. Assoc., 55(1), 24–37.
Newman, P. W. G., and Kenworthy, J. R. (2006). “Urban design to reduce automobile dependence.” Opolis, 2(1), 35–52.
Norman, J., MacLean, H. L., and Kennedy, C. A. (2006). “Comparing high and low residential density: Life-cycle analysis of energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.” J. Urban Plann. Dev., 10–21.
Oesterreichs Energie, and Eurelectric. (2012). “Emissionen der Stromerzeugung im EU-Vergleich.” 〈http://oesterreichsenergie.at/Emissionen_der_Stromerzeugung_im_EU-Vergleich.html〉 (Jul. 20, 2012).
R [Computer software]. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria.
Reckien, D., Ewald, M., Edenhofer, O., and Liideke, M. K. B. (2007). “What parameters influence the spatial variations in emissions from road traffic in Berlin? Implications for urban planning to reduce anthropogenic emissions.” Urban Stud., 44(2), 339–355.
Rickwood, P., Glazebrook, G., and Searle, G. (2008). “Urban structure and energy—A review.” Urban Pol. Res., 26(1), 57–81.
Romero Lankao, P., and Dodman, D. (2011). “Cities in transition: Transforming urban centers from hotbeds of GHG emissions and vulnerability to seedbeds of sustainability and resilience.” Curr. Opin. Environ. Sustain., 3(3), 113–120.
Russo, F., and Comi, A. (2011). “Measures for sustainable freight transportation at urban scale: Expected goals and tested results in Europe.” J. Urban Plann. Dev., 142–152.
Schäfer, A., Heywood, J. B., Jacoby, H. D., Waitz, I. A., and (2009). “Transportation in a climate-constrained world.” MIT Press, Cambridge.
Schwarz, N. (2010). “Urban form revisited—Selecting indicators for characterising European cities.” Landsc. Urban Plann., 96(1), 29–47.
Sinha, K. (2003). “Sustainability and urban public transportation.” J. Transp. Eng., 331–341.
Smit, B., and Pilifosova, O. (2001). “Adaptation to climate change in the context of sustainable development and equity.” Climate change 2001: Working Group II: Impacts, adaptation and vulnerability, Assessment Reports, J. J. McCarthy, O. F. Canziani, N. A. Leary, D. J. Dokken and K. S. White, eds., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.
Stead, D., and Marshall, S. (2001). “The relationships between urban form and travel patterns. An international review and evaluation.” Eur. J. Transport. Infrastruct. Res., 1(2), 113–141.
United Nations Human Settlement Programme. (2011). Cities and climate change, Washington, DC.
Webb, N., Tsagatakis, I., Passant, N., and Mould, R. (2011). “Local and regional carbon dioxide emissions estimates for 2005–2009 for the U.K.” Technical Rep., Department of Energy and Climate Change, Didcot, U.K., 42.
Wegener, M. (1996). “Reduction of emissions of transport by reorganisation of urban activities.” Transport, land-use and the environment, Springer, New York.
Zhang, L., Yang, Z., Liang, J., and Cai, Y. (2011). “Spatial variation and distribution of urban energy consumptions from cities in China.” Energies, 4(1), 26–38.
Zhao, C., Fu, G., Liu, X., and Fu, F. (2011). “Urban planning indicators, morphology and climate indicators: A case study for a north-south transect of Beijing, China.” Build. Environ., 46(5), 1174–1183.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Urban Planning and Development
Volume 140 • Issue 1 • March 2014
Copyright
© 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Oct 25, 2012
Accepted: Jun 13, 2013
Published online: Jun 15, 2013
Published in print: Mar 1, 2014
Discussion open until: May 5, 2014
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.