Incorporating cities into the post-2012 climate change agreements

This paper examines the legal, political, technical, economic and financial implications of fitting commitments by cities into the post-2012 climate change agreement. It notes the widespread recognition of the importance of cities and local governments to this agreement and describes the many challenges to including these governments within it – technical, political and economic. There are also the difficulties in reaching agreement on how targets can take into account differences in capacity to act and differences in the sectors where city governments have jurisdiction. As the post-2012 climate change negotiations are already a highly complicated process, the inclusion of sub-national governments into the agreement needs to constitute a “solution” rather than a “new problem”. The objective of this paper is to offer a framework and to identify key elements that need to be taken into account when developing a roadmap that seeks empowerment of local governments in the UN post-2012 framework on climate change.