A framework for assessing the sustainable transition potential of municipal climate change mitigation plans

AbstractLocal climate change mitigation plans can be essential in enabling sustainability transitions at the municipality level. However, existing frameworks for assessing the quality of climate plans inadequately address their potential to foster sustainability transitions. We develop an assessment framework consisting of indicators and associated questions by integrating elements of the transition management framework with essential quality dimensions of climate plans and planning processes identified through a literature review. We illustrate and validate the assessment framework by applying it to the climate plans of three medium-sized cities in Switzerland. Our findings demonstrate that the local climate change mitigation plans performed well regarding the tactical and operational indicators but were less optimal concerning strategic and reflexive indicators. Nevertheless, the transition management framework provided a useful framework contributing to a comprehensive and systemic assessment highlighting the importance of stakeholder involvement, inter-sectoral coordination, and monitoring and evaluation as a means for social learning.Keywords: Climate change mitigationlocal climate action plansplan qualityassessment frameworktransition management AcknowledgementsThe authors would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions.Disclosure statementThe authors report there are no competing interests to declare.Notes1 Sustainability transitions refer to radical changes towards greater sustainability in central systems of production and consumption, which are needed to address the multiple current environmental crises, including climate change and biodiversity loss. Importantly, such changes necessitate not only new technologies, but also modifications in infrastructures, consumption patterns, rules and regulations, business models, etc. (Köhler et al. Citation2019). ‘Transitions management’ has long been recognized as a useful framework for understanding and influencing these complex long-term changes needed for cities to become sustainable in the future (Loorbach Citation2007; Loorbach, Frantzeskaki, and Avelino Citation2017), including the type of processes that are needed to engage in substantial local mitigation of GHG emissions.2 Due to the, in general, limited literature on LCAP quality, we have in addition to the dedicated mitigation action plans also included relevant studies that assess LCAP covering both mitigation and adaptation. In such cases, we have analysed the study with regard to the mitigation planning related findings.Additional informationFundingTeis Hansen acknowledges funding from the Research Council of Norway through FME NTRANS, grant 296205.