1. Cities and Green Growth OECD Green Cities Programme
Regions for Economic Change Conference
24 June | Brussels
Marissa Plouin
OECD

2. The logic of city scale action
Correlation between per capita CO2 emissions in transport and density in predominantly urban areas
Economic role of cities
Negative externalities
Contribution to climate change
Vulnerability to climate change impacts
 Opportunities for synergies

3. 2010 Urban Roundtable of Mayors and Ministers www. oecd
2010 Urban Roundtable of Mayors and Ministers
Roundtable responded to a call for an evaluation of urban green growth policies to determine best practices, concluding:
Urban green growth policies can contribute to national competitiveness outcomes
Strategies are requiring significant up-front investments and long-term financial mechanisms
Need to bridge gap between national and urban approaches to green growth
Indicators are needed to measure their impact

4. OECD Green Cities Programme
Development of urban green growth indicators
Thematic working papers and reports
Case studies to assess policy impacts on green growth
Technical workshops and political meetings
A synthesis report on Cities and Green Growth

5. What do we mean by green growth? Definitions and desirable scenarios
The conceptual framework | Part I
What do we mean by green growth? Definitions and desirable scenarios

6. Defining green growth
Green growth means fostering economic growth and development while ensuring that the quality and quantity of natural assets can continue to provide the resources and ecosystem services on which our well-being relies.
To do this, it must catalyze investment, competition and innovation which will underpin sustained growth and give rise to new economic opportunities.
OECD Green Growth Strategy, 2011

7. Green growth and sustainable development

8. Alternative green growth scenarios Multi-Sectoral Growth
Green Sectoral Growth
Scenario 3 –
Economic Greening
Scenario 1 –
No Impact
Scenario 6 – Economic Stagnation/De-Growth
Scenario 4 –
Multi-Sectoral Growth
Scenario 5 –
Displacement

9. The conceptual framework | Part II A proposal for a policy framework

10. A policy framework for an urban green growth agenda
Goals & values
Socio-technical resources
Pro-growth policies
Human capital
Infrastructure
Innovation
Greening challenges and opportunities
Energy
Building
Mobility
Pollution management
Natural resources
Green services
Policy levers
Rulemaking & oversight
Public spending
Financial tools
Information & advocacy
Policy jurisdiction
Supra-national
National
Sub-national

11. A policy framework for an urban green growth agenda

12. Green growth policy synergies: example of transport and mobility
Greening opportunities
Pro-growth policies
Human capital policies
Infrastructure and investment policies
Innovation policies
Mobility policies
Impact on jobs
Impact on demand for green goods
Impact on urban attractiveness

13. Challenges to advancing an urban green growth agenda
The conceptual framework | Part III
Challenges to advancing an urban green growth agenda
I’d like to close by touching on a few of the main challenges to advancing an urban GG agenda

14. Limits to the urban green growth agenda
Risk of a zero-sum game among cities?
Some urban economies may grow a great deal while other could shrink.
Cities are not equal: baseline variables
Resource Environment
Policy and Economic Environment
Natural resource base
Climate/geographic conditions
Technology/infrastructure
Urban form/built environment
Policy competency
Level of engagement
Industrial/economic base
Other economic factors

15. Gaps in multi-level governance
Administrative gap
Geographical mismatch between the green growth challenge or opportunity and the administrative boundaries.
Policy gap
Sectoral fragmentation of policy tasks and powers across ministries and public agencies within the central government administration as well as among different departments within sub-national government administrations.
Information gap
Asymmetry of information across ministries, between levels of government and across local actors involved in specific policy areas.
Capacity gap
Insufficient scientific and technical expertise, know-how and infrastructure to design and implement policy.
Funding (or fiscal) gap
Insufficient or unstable revenues to implement policy across ministries and levels of government.
Objective gap
Diverging or contradictory objectives between levels of government or departments/ministries that compromise the adoption of convergent targets over the long run.
Accountability gap
Lack of transparency in policymaking, integrity and institutional quality issues.
Market gap
Misalignment between policymaking goals or ambitions and the ability of private sector stakeholders to deliver these goals.

16. Measuring and monitoring green growth
Methodological challenges of developing green growth indicators, particularly at the sub-national level
Builds on OECD efforts to develop metrics that go beyond GDP to measure societal well-being (Measuring Progress) and assess green growth (OECD Green Growth Strategy)
Currently expanding the Metropolitan Database to include four classes of environmental indicators:
residential density and sprawl
land use and change in land cover
transport use and travel time
urban emissions and air quality

17. Financing green growth
Fees and charges
Transportation
Development
Energy
Local cap-and-trade
Carbon offsets
Public-private partnerships

18. National policies and frameworks matter
National pricing signals, e.g. carbon taxes
National targets and incentives
Greening urban finance
Technical assistance and knowledge sharing