1. Cities and climate governance. From experimental initiatives to reshaping urban development. Matthew Paterson, University of Ottawa

2. Research on cities/climate change Transnational city networks Experimental governance Aim: to focus more on question of urban political economy and development: drivers of emissions and enduring contradictions

3. Ontario’s GHG emissions

4. The question of density Density is key to urban energy use and thus GHG emissions Density determines: Proportion of journeys made not in a car (key determinant of transport emissions) Note: much more important than the fuel economy of individual vehicles: a dense urbanite SUV owner who never drives has much lower emissions than a suburbanite Civic owner Density has big influence on: House size (key determinant of household energy use) Housing type (row houses for e.g. much lower energy use than single houses)

5. Source: Derived from P. Newman & J. Kenworthy, Sustainability and Cities, Island Press, 1999. This version available at: http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/kenworthyhttp://www.tumblr.com/tagged/kenworthy

6. The question of density Density is key to urban energy use and thus GHG emissions Density determines: Proportion of journeys made not in a car (key determinant of transport emissions) Note: much more important than the fuel economy of individual vehicles: a dense urbanite SUV owner who never drives has much lower emissions than a suburbanite Civic owner Density has big influence on: House size (key determinant of household energy use) Housing type (row houses for e.g. much lower energy use than single houses)

7. Source: http://www.cities21.org/HH_NRG_consumption.htmhttp://www.cities21.org/HH_NRG_consumption.htm

8. Low carbon city as transformation of urban development North American urban context Increased density as key device for low carbon transitions Already widely established as planning goal, even without climate/carbon as specific driver (increasingly in urban plans, but not yet a ‘driver’ in many places) Highly contested process when new buildings proposed Useful site to explore character of conflicts – values, desires, fears, etc invoked both for and against intensification

9. Intensification conflicts Research ongoing in Ottawa, preliminary results Conflicts concentrated in urban core Significant urban-suburban conflict Political economy of intensification is the same as the political economy of sprawl Competing visions of intensification Le Corbusier vs Jane Jacobs Ambivalence. Those who most consistently oppose intensification are those who most consistently are in favour of low carbon development

11. Intensification conflicts Research ongoing in Ottawa, preliminary results Conflicts concentrated in urban core Significant urban-suburban conflict Political economy of intensification is the same as the political economy of sprawl Competing visions of intensification Le Corbusier vs Jane Jacobs Ambivalence. Those who most consistently oppose intensification are those who most consistently are in favour of low carbon development

12. Conclusions Centrality of cities in climate policy Control over key policy levers Particular types of challenges Cultural Urban development models and political-economic relations Experiments important but attention to contradictions also important