The effect of administrative form and stability on cities’ use of greenhouse gas emissions inventories as a basis for mitigation

Abstract

Sparked by their emergence as innovative climate policy leaders, cities’ decisions to engage in greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation planning have been the subject of extensive examination over the last decade. The impact that these planning and subsequent local policy actions have on addressing actual emissions, however, remains under-explored and even less is known about the conditions under which cities’ climate planning efforts result in meaningful mitigation. Data limitations, specifically the sporadic and unstandardized accounting of local GHG emissions, underlie the minimal empirical attention given to understanding cities’ climate policy outcomes. To circumvent these data challenges, we quantify the impact of local efforts through expert evaluation. We utilize nation-wide survey data collected from U.S. cities in 2010 and 2015 to empirically assess how community and city government characteristics influence the extent to which cities’ climate planning efforts serve as the basis for emissions reductions. The results suggest that the dynamics shaping cities’ decisions to complete an inventory are different from those that influence whether it is used as a basis for emissions reductions. Results also point to the positive effect of regular inventory updates and to the importance of stability in the administrative leadership of sustainability in a city’s government.