Cities Activity Database - EOI for Australian Councils
If you made it to the Better Futures Australia forum in mid-August 2021, then you’ll have seen the launch of the 99-page Australian Local Government Climate Review 2021, an update on how Australian councils are lifting their ambition in local and global campaigns to ‘Race to Zero’; heard 15 sharp and snappy council climate case studies from across the land; and heard about how councils can best reduce municipal transport emissions.
There was a lot to feast your eyes and attention on!
If you missed these sessions, then don’t worry: there’ll be a lot of follow-ups and more opportunities to get involved. You can start by jumping online and joining others in signing the Better Futures Australia declaration.
One big opportunity that has arisen is that we're joining forces with Cities Power Partnership to offer new CPP members with a short report on actions that similar cities and towns are taking and how effective they have been. This will include insights into the costs of interventions, carbon abatement potential and probability of successful uptake. All from the new Cities Activity Database. Sound interesting?
- Take me straight to the Cities Activity Database EOI
- Take me straight to the Cities Power Partnership (CPP) Webinar at 1pm (AEST) on Wednesday 15th September 2021
Imagine a Database with 13,000 City Climate Actions from Around Australia and The World
At the BFA "Cities Activity Database" session, Matthew Sullivan-Kilgour from Ironbark Sustainability and Dr Paris Hadfield from the Melbourne Centre for Cities presented insights into city climate actions, tools and decision making from around Australia and the world. They were joined by Dr Portia Odell from Cities Power Partnership to discuss how city climate action research can benefit Australian councils to be able to more easily and effectively understand what other councils are doing, and where the best opportunities for climate action lay.
This is where things got exciting and where immediate opportunities opened for Australian councils!
A “Cities Activity Database” (or CAD) might sound a little boring until you realise that it is all about understanding the information councils need to make decisions in their climate action journey. The database has been developed over the last 12 months and now contains around 13,000 city climate activities for Australia and the world.
Yep, 13,000. And growing.
That’s 13,000 climate activities, including data on the cost of a climate intervention, the carbon abatement potential, the probability of uptake and probability of success, to model a carbon abatement scenario for each intervention. This is a database that will be able to help your city determine the most popular, most impactful, or most cost-effective interventions targeting a certain sector or source based on what similar cities around the world are doing. This is what evidence-based climate action planning looks like in practice.
Why Would We Compare Ourselves with Cities in Uzbekistan or Taiwan?
13,000 climate actions from around the world sounds interesting. But this is where things move from interesting to a level of sophistication that we all need in order to have the best chance of avoiding dangerous climate change.
This isn’t some ad-hoc database that has been developed by throwing actions into an excel spreadsheet. A key problem with processes in the past has been poor standardisation, meaning that we don’t know if we’re making meaningful comparisons. With an ever-increasing number of cities taking greater action on emissions and adaptation measures, the existing methods of knowledge transfer become even less effective and navigable.
The Cities Activity Database has been designed to remove the need for council officers to individually review strategies and other relevant documents and to help councils ensure climate action is based on evidence. It standardises categorisations of climate action to improve the ability to analyse and aggregate activities, providing further insight into what constitutes effective and scalable action.
We’re not comparing Tashkent (Uzbekistan) with Toowoomba (Queensland) or Kaohsiung (Taiwan) with Ku-ring-gai (NSW). Instead, we’re using statistical analysis to create subsets of cities with similar characteristics, or “cohorts”. This means the database can automatically compare cities to groups of similar cities, which is paramount to identify suitable actions and interventions.
Want to Get Involved?
If you’re not a member of Cities Power Partnership (CPP), then… well firstly why not? It’s the largest cities climate program in Australia, free to join, easy to participate, and the team at CPP will help give you the tools, the connections, and the momentum to capitalise on the global shift to a clean economy.
Secondly, you can be the first in world to benefit from the Cities Activity Database.
Ironbark have joined forces with CPP to launch an Australian-first pilot program that will help councils make evidence-based decisions when choosing emissions reduction actions. Any new council that joins CPP before November 2021 will be the first in the world to benefit from the database.
Councils that join the Cities Power Partnership have six months to select five pledges, which range from renewable energy and energy efficiency to transport and advocacy. Any council that joins now will benefit from free expert insights to advise individualised high-impact emissions reduction projects and inform your council pledges.
Ironbark will provide new CPP members with a short report on actions that similar cities and towns are taking and how effective they have been. This will include insights into the costs of interventions, carbon abatement potential and probability of successful uptake.
Come along to the Cities Power Partnership Introductory Webinar at 1pm (AEST) on Wednesday 15 September 2021 to hear more.
If you're already a member of CPP then you can still express interest and we'll let you know through announcements just around the corner how you can also benefit.