An increasing number of cities are focusing on sustainability and climate change mitigation by joining groups such the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI). ICLEI uses a five-step milestone process to help cities achieve their mitigation goals. These milestones include conducting a greenhouse gas inventory, setting reduction targets, creating a Climate Action Plan, and implementing and monitoring that plan. Prior studies have examined factors that may influence a citys decision to join ICLEI, but few have looked at how committed the cities are to sustainability and to ICLEI itself after joining the organization. The purpose of this study is to uncover why some member cities show a greater commitment to the ICLEI program than others. Commitment to climate change mitigation was measured by the number of ICLEI program milestones achieved by 257 member cities. Fifteen independent variables covering socioeconomic conditions, local residents attitudes, climate stress, and location were included in a principal components analysis, chi-square test, and multiple regression analysis to identify key factors that may explain variation in level of commitment to climate change mitigation. The results show that the number of years a city has been an ICLEI member has a positive effect on milestone attainment, while the levels of car dependency and hazardous air pollutants have negative effects. In other words, member cities with higher levels of hazardous air pollution and greater dependence on automobiles had achieved fewer ICLEI milestones than cities with lower levels of climate stress. These findings are useful not only in evaluating the effectiveness of ICLEI, but in yielding better understanding of the varied environmental, cultural and socioeconomic contexts of member cities. The insights have implications for ICLEI and other similar organizations that may need to target member cities facing more significant challenges in meeting program goals with additional technical assistance and support to help them achieve meaningful local climate change mitigation.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-04262012-094911 |
| Date | 04 May 2012 |
| Creators | Clinton, Kelsey Wefer |
| Contributors | Reams, Margaret, Lam, Nina, Wascom, Michael |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-04262012-094911/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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