While the international community has been struggling to agree on climate change targets and co-ordinated approaches to fight global warming, and many national governments have begun to act, a growing number of cities and regions have also taken initiatives to reduce their energy use and GHG emissions and to begin to adapt to climate change. Cities and regions in many OECD countries have key responsibilities in the urban sectors that can provide valuable strategies for fighting and adapting to climate change, including policies that affect transportation and the built environment. With the help of strategic planning tools, policies at the local level can establish complementary policy packages that bring together territorial strategies and sectoral policies. Chapter 4 reviews policy tools to address climate change at the local level in the sectors of land-use zoning, natural resources, transportation, building, waste and water. The question of effective urban policy packages intersects with the concept of urban spatial density, a major driver of CO2 and N2O emissions. This chapter also assesses different characteristics of urban densification policies and their effectiveness in meeting environmental goals whilst ensuring that cities remain attractive in the long term.

Environmental policies that do not also support growth will not be sustainable over the long term. Chapter 5 discusses the role of cities in contributing to a new global green growth model at a time when governments must reduce their carbon footprint while pursuing economic growth and job creation. The chapter highlights the main policy areas through which city and regional governments can contribute to green growth objectives, including developing and maintaining green public infrastructure, improving the eco-efficiency of production, boosting demand by fostering the greening of consumption preferences and facilitating green innovation. Tools need to be developed for assessing the effectiveness of such policies in reaching their objectives of job creation and output growth and the chapter provides a first step through an analytical framework that can orient future research on this crucial issue.