Solving climate change at the city level

February 8, 2016

Can city governments solve the problem of climate change? That’s the question the University of Toronto’s Sara Hughes is hoping to answer as she investigates how three major cities – Toronto, New York and Los Angeles – are delivering on ambitious pledges to improve sustainability.

“Globally, cities are where most people live, and where most economic activity takes place, and they contribute nearly 70 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions from energy and transportation,” says Hughes, an assistant professor in the department of political science at the University of Toronto, Mississauga. “Cities play a big role in contributing to climate change, so they also have a big role to play in reducing those emissions.” The complete U of T news article is available here.

Hughes’ study, The Politics of Sustainable Cities: Case Studies of Institutional Change, is funded through UTM’s Research and Scholarly Activity Fund and the 2015 Connaught New Researcher award.