Climate change is one of the greatest threats humanity faces today, and cities are instrumental in reaching the global climate goals and solving the crisis.
Already, more than half of the world population lives in cities, and projections show, that by 2050 another 2.5 billion people will join them, thus increasing the rate to 68 per cent of the total global population.
As of May 2020, the UNFCCC platform on climate change actions had registered climate change actions by over 10,000 cities around the world.
Now cities have a new tool to bolster their climate action efforts: A Sourcebook on how municipalities can increase their energy efficiency efforts, by bundling projects.
Download Upscaling Energy-efficiency in Municipalities: Sourcebook on Project Bundling here.
Untapped potential
Energy efficiency brings with it multiple benefits, including saving energy and costs, creating local jobs, reducing local and global air pollution, improved indoor comfort and productivity and better health.
It is also widely recognized as one of the most effective ways of reducing CO2 emissions and accomplishing SDG7: ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.
However, despite the considerable investment potential, it remains largely untapped.
The likely reasons for this lie in barriers, hindering investments, and, perhaps most importantly, the absence of comprehensive and well-designed energy efficiency strategies.
Municipalities have the authority and resources to take the required action at a local level and play a key role in the implementation. However, energy efficiency projects proposed by municipalities are often very small and therefore fail to attract investors.
It is against this background, that the Copenhagen Centre on Energy Efficiency has been focusing its recent work on energy efficiency improvements in municipalities of the developing countries.
The newly released sourcebook is one of several efforts to accelerate and scale-up implementation of energy efficiency projects and programmes.
Streamlined guidance for strategic planning
The Sourcebook has been developed with two objectives. Firstly, to provide streamlined and structured guidance on how to develop a comprehensive energy efficiency strategy for cities and municipalities. Secondly, to provide guidance on the technical, operational and financial aspects related to the Project Bundling approach, which can significantly facilitate the implementation of programmes and projects emanating from these strategy plans.
Read more about how bundling projects in Argentina enabled historic investments in energy efficient street lighting.
The Sourcebook is intended for stakeholders at municipal level and is kept simple and as short as possible. It has been developed having municipalities in developing countries in mind, taking into consideration the prevailing differences regarding local conditions, but can also be used by mayors and decision-makers in developed countries.
