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A technical and economic assessment of more than 750 measures that could be taken to reduce GHG emissions from the Belfast economy.

This commentary from the Journal Editorial Board sets out the research agenda for the journal and invites contributions. We want to elicit and synthesize research- and practice-based knowledge toward the goal of resilient, equitable cities in a world with less than 1.5°C of warming, focusing on the transformational change needed to achieve this goal. Within this focus, we set out two primary areas that are pivotal to demonstrate the economic and political strategies necessary to stop climate breakdown: ecologically and socially viable and just economic systems; and purposeful, progressive, and inclusive government and governance. We set out key principles of transformational change and invite a plurality of conceptualizations, particularly emphasizing the need and potential of drawing on emerging thinking at regional, national, and international levels and applying it to city-scale. We outline the need for action-oriented, policy-relevant research in collaboration with city actors, tackling priority challenges in real-time, as well as an openness to new knowledge, perspectives, and contributors. We aim to catalyze and realize the opportunity to combine collective city action with academic (re-)thinking and research activism, in order to empower mayors with the evidence and narrative to create sustainable, thriving cities.

Access to reliable, timely, and relevant information is fundamental in most areas of decision-making but may be especially important in complex fast-moving fields where multiple ideas, approaches, or options compete for limited resources. The low-carbon cities space is exactly such a field, with many cities seeking to accelerate and intensify their flow of low-carbon investment. However, there are diverse sources of information making different and sometimes competing claims about the potential contribution of various low-carbon options. The ability of city-level decision-makers to access real, empirical, data on different options, drawn from monitoring and evaluation of actual ex-post performance, is widely lacking. This is a significant concern as the absence of such data hampers decision-makers’1 ability to make sound and informed investment decisions, which restricts the rate of decarbonisation by increasing the risks and costs of low-carbon investment while reducing rates of innovation and learning. This feasibility study examines the nature of this challenge in the context of low-carbon investment decision-making in cities and whether it could be resolved through a new approach to the collection and communication of evidence on the real performance of a wide range of low-carbon options that could be adopted in cities and communities around Europe. It finds that: • City-scale low-carbon investment decisions are typically taken against a backdrop of multiple stakeholders, competing priorities, tight budgets, pressing deadlines, contextually-specific conditions and a wide range of competing options. It therefore highlights the prevalence of context-specific decision-making under conditions of complexity and uncertainty. • When making investment decisions, city-level decision-makers rely most heavily on their own experience, on internal sources of information and on personal contacts to guide decision-making. If economic data on the performance of a low-carbon options is available, it is not available for all alternatives, and data on the chosen option is often considered only late in the decision-making process. Drawing on a review of existing platforms and organisations, a survey, and interviews with city-level decision-makers, this study proposes an approach that could be applied by cvaluate to stimulate evaluations of the real performance of low-carbon options and the provision of trustworthy, relevant information on performance to investors and decisionmakers. It is argued that this approach could reduce the costs and the risks of low-carbon investments in cities and communities across Europe whilst also accelerating innovation and learning and the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Internationally, allocation of responsibility for reducing greenhouse gas emissions is currently based on the production‐based (PB) accounting method, which measures emissions generated in the place where goods and services are produced. However, the growth of emissions embodied in trade has raised the question whether we should switch to, or amalgamate PB accounting, with other accounting approaches. Consumption‐based (CB) accounting has so far emerged as the most prominent alternative. This approach accounts for emissions at the point of consumption, attributing all the emissions that occurred in the course of production and distribution to the final consumers of goods and services. This review has a fourfold objective. First, it provides an account of the logic behind attributing responsibility for emissions on the basis of consumption instead of production. Issues of equity and justice, increased emissions coverage, encouragement of cleaner production practices, and political benefits are considered. Second, it discusses the counterarguments, focusing in particular on issues of technical complexity, mitigation effectiveness, and political acceptability. Third, it presents the spectrum of implementation possibilities—ranging from the status quo to more transformative options—and considers the implications for international climate policy that would accrue under various scenarios of adopting CB accounting in practice. Fourth, it looks at how CB accounting may be adjusted to fit with current political realities and it identifies policy mechanisms that could potentially be utilized to directly or indirectly address CB emissions. Such an approach could unlock new opportunities for climate policy innovation and for climate mitigation.