The Concept of City Carbon Maps: A Case Study of Melbourne, Australia by Wiedmann, Thomas O. and Chen, Guangwu and Barrett, John (2016)

The Concept of City Carbon Maps: A Case Study of Melbourne, Australia

Title

The Concept of City Carbon Maps: A Case Study of Melbourne, Australia

Author(s)

Thomas O. Wiedmann

Chia-Wen Chen

John Barrett

Year

2016

Type

Journal Article

Source

Journal of Industrial Ecology, Volume 20, Issue 4, Pages 676-691

DOI

10.1111/jiec.12346

Abstract

Cities are thought to be associated with most of humanity's consumption of natural resources and impacts on the environment. Cities not only constitute major centers of economic activity, knowledge, innovation, and governance—they are also said to be linked to approximately 70% to 80% of global carbon dioxide emissions. This makes cities primary agents of change in a resource- and carbon-constraint world. In order to set meaningful targets, design successful policies, and implement effective mitigation strategies, it is important that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions accounting for cities is accurate, comparable, comprehensive, and complete. Despite recent developments in the standardization of city GHG accounting, there is still a lack of consistent guidelines regarding out-of-boundary emissions, thus hampering efforts to identify mitigation priorities and responsibilities. We introduce a new conceptual framework—based on environmental input-output analysis—that allows for a consistent and complete reconciliation of direct and indirect GHG emissions from a city. The 'city carbon map' shows local, regional, national, and global origins and destinations of flows of embodied emissions. We test the carbon map concept by applying it to the greater metropolitan area of Melbourne, Australia. We discuss the results and limitations of the approach in the light of possible mitigation strategies and policies by different urban stakeholders.

Access

Paid / private access

More Information

http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jiec.12346

The Concept of City Carbon Maps: A Case Study of Melbourne, Australia

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