City-Level Decoupling-Full Report

necessary to make radical transformation in decarbonising energy systems need effective coordination and incentives to engage. 5. The impact of Transition Town initiatives and their networked basis has not yet been quantified. This may be one of its strengths, but makes it difficult for consistent shared monitoring of impacts. A significant issue for localisation movements in the global North is how they engage with disadvantaged communities given the time and resource commitments necessary to participate meaningfully. 6.6 Retrofitting existing 'urban networked infrastructures' This section discusses interventions that reconfigure particular infrastructure systems that address issues such as water security, energy security, food security or flood resilience, and exploit the potential of smart technologies and pricing systems to reconfigure the use of existing infrastructures. These responses seek to systemically reshape existing infrastructure networks in order to reduce vulnerability, increase self-reliance and develop resilience. General pressures for retrofitting existing urban networked infrastructures relate to specific networks and places. For example, recurring food shortages and economic crises, and in particular a 2001 food crisis, generated initiatives aimed at increasing food production and security in Buenos Aires, Arengentina. The country’s ProHuerta initiative aims to improve nutrition among impoverished peri- urban and rural populations by encouraging the production of organic food on a small scale (from home gardens, small farms, schools, institutions, and community organizations). This is a nationwide initiative funded by national government with support from international organisations. 6.6.1. Pressures and visions

the focus of attention, preferring rather to depict citizens and direct action as the key motors of change.

6.5.4. Lessons learned

Five key conclusions can be drawn from the case studies on systemic urban transitions:

1. The race to lead by example and achieve first mover status needs to be understood in a longer historical context. For example, Portland’s aspirations to be a low carbon exemplar can be traced back to 1993 when it was the first US local government to institute policy around anticipated global warming. San Jose has a strong history of high recycling rates, water conservation strategies, energy efficiency and alternative energy programmes dating back to the 1980s. Its embedded capacity is significant in that it is located in Silicon Valley with its culture of technological development, innovation and high levels of venture capital investment. 2. Information is often readily available for citizens and businesses wanting to move towards a low-carbon future. This stimulates more forms of partnership working between different public, private and community interests. 3. The financing of this range of schemes involves a complex and emerging regime of direct investments, grants, subsidies, efforts to attract private finance, new mechanisms to recycle investments, long-term payback mechanisms to upfront costs through envisaged savings, and public authority investments from savings made in their own estates through resources efficiencies and savings. 4. Seeing transition as an opportunity for economic growth could result in further growth that is not decoupled from resource use. Another significant problem is the lack of a consistent and concerted way of measuring savings and sharing the learning that transition processes produce. The wide range of interests that are

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