Mobilizing cities towards a low-carbon future: Tambourines, carrots and sticks

This paper first discusses how to evaluate the climate and energy performance of a city and how local authorities can contribute to its improvements. Moreover, it analyses the disincentives that local governments are confronted with, categorizing them as simple market failures, institutional failures and multi-agent failures. The paper then presents a survey of initiatives at national and EU levels to promote local action towards a low-carbon future; grouping them into tambourines, carrots and sticks. We focus on Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden because they are pioneering countries regarding energy policies for cities.