De-Carbonisation of Cities: Challenges, Future Trends and Measuring Progress

Climate change has been the center of attention over the past three decades owing to its impact on increasing the earth’s average temperature. Circumstantially, cities are the most significant contributors to high CO2 levels to the environment as a result of its high energy consumption and resources input. Cities are where the fabric of human destiny is woven and where scientific innovations and technological achievements are predominantly reflected. The main focus of today’s urban managers is to cope with the tremendous changes occurring as a result of the megatrend of urbanization. As such, this article provides a contextual discourse on the subject of contemporary urbanization. It looks at the nature of city problems and challenges that have arisen, the future directions of decarbonization in cities, the initiatives that are being taken to counteract carbon emissions in cities, and the value of robust measurement of the effectiveness of urban sustainability initiatives.