Sustainability of Low Carbon City Initiatives in China: A Comprehensive Literature Review

Garfield Wayne Hunter, Gideon Sagoe, Daniele Vettorato and Ding Jiayu
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Garfield Wayne Hunter: College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China
Gideon Sagoe: Sewerage Systems Ghana Ltd., P.O. Box GP 1630, Accra, Ghana
Daniele Vettorato: Institute of Renewable Energy, EURAC Research, Via G. Di Vittorio 16, I-39100 Bolzano, Italy
Ding Jiayu: College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 16, 1-37

Abstract: Low carbon city (LCC) has emerged as the latest sustainable urbanism strategy in China as a response to climate change impacts. Yet, minimal scholarships have explored the sustainability of the urban planning model towards understanding the complexity of the components. Using a two-step triangulation approach, this paper presents a structured overview of the LCC initiative in China as it relates to the transition to a sustainability paradigm. The data collection approach includes a comprehensive review of 238 articles on LCC to identify and categorize LCC components. Furthermore, discourse and framing analysis was used to develop and synthesize a conceptual framework for assimilating the components into four core sustainable development principles: Integration, implementation, equity, and scalability and replicability. The results indicate that LCC development in China is bias towards economic and environmental technological innovations and strategies. Additionally, several critical sustainability issues of LCC pilots were identified. These include a lack of social equity planning concerns for the most vulnerable population, dearth of social reforms that cater to lifestyle and behavioral change, top-down planning and decision-making processes, a technocratic rationalization planning approach, inconsistent LCC targets on inter-generational justice concerns, absence of an effective national “sharing and learning” city–city network system, and several barriers to implementation. We conclude that the applied theoretical and conceptual inquiry into the field of LCC is pertinent to mitigate climate change and achieve sustainable urban development.

Keywords: sustainable development; Chinese literature; low carbon city; climate change; mitigation; urban planning; systematic review; equity; sustainable energy; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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