Localizing and monitoring climate neutrality through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) framework: the case of Madrid

Madrid’s Roadmap to Climate Neutrality by 2050 is the city’s strategy to attain a 65% reduction in GHG emissions by 2030 and decarbonization in 2050. This paper analyses the Roadmap to extract a comparable concept of neutrality, as defined from the perspective of a local government. It then runs a semantic comparison between the Roadmap’s policy lines and indicators and the metrics used in a sample of other local governments’ Voluntary Local Reviews on SDG localization. It assesses to what extent the Roadmap’s policy priorities and goals fit with the idea of climate neutrality and decarbonisation that other local governments are monitoring. The paper also links the Roadmap with the SDGs, studying to what extent certain Goals resonate with the climate neutrality dimension monitored by the Roadmap and the other documents in the sample. The study shows that there is still significant diversity in the way local governments approach climate neutrality, even though carbon emissions and sustainable transport remain common priorities. A large majority of indicators used to monitor climate neutrality still refer to key climate-related SDGs such as SDG 7, 11, 12, and 13, even though there is growing evidence that local governments are diversifying the concept of decarbonisation policy with which they are working.

CIAMBRA Andrea;  STAMOS Iraklis;  SIRAGUSA Alice; 

2023-03-13

MDPI

JRC132317

2071-1050 (online),   

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/6/4819,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC132317,   

10.3390/su15064819 (online),