Energy Transitions in Global Cities: Impacts, Responses, and Prospects

Cities run largely on fossil fuels, responsible for 78% of the world’s energy consumption, and more than 60% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile, cities are playing a vital role in developing, implementing and overseeing low-carbon policies. As the whole world continues is striving for energy transition, the way existing and entirely new cities shape their energy infrastructures will have a defining impact on our ability to reduce carbon emissions over the coming decades.

However, there is no one-size-fits-all solution for the diversified global cities to achieve their energy transition targets. Cities across the world may encounter different challenges due to their geographical locations, economic structures, institutional systems and even culture issues. Therefore, it is urgent for both the academia and policy makers to learn from past experiences and find new wisdom for future development.

This special issue aims to gather contributions that analyze the energy transition issues in cities at local, national and international levels. We invite submissions that introduce novel ideas and evidence-based findings to facilitate energy transitions in global cities. Interdisciplinary research papers on relevant topics that combine different theoretical and methodological approaches are particularly welcomed.

This special issue will focus on energy transitions in global cities, including impacts, responses, and prospects. Papers may include the following topics, but not limited to:

• City-level health impacts of energy transitions

• Clean energy transitions in urban transportation system

• Impacts of energy transitions on cities’ ecology systems

• Development of distributed energy system in cities

• Evaluations of policy innovations in cities

• Demand-side energy management in cities

• Urban infrastructures and sustainable developments

• Emerging technologies in accelerating cities’ energy transitions

• Intercity energy connections