Why Cities Must Address Consumption to Truly Curb Carbon Emissions
Cities must go beyond local emissions and tackle consumption patterns to make meaningful climate progress.
Most cities have responded to the urgent call for climate action by pledging to lower their carbon emissions, targeting sources such as transportation, heating, and energy used within their boundaries. However, a growing body of research and urban practitioners argue that this approach overlooks a critical piece of the climate puzzle: consumption-based emissions—those generated outside a city due to goods and services imported for local use.
Understanding Urban Emissions: Local vs. Consumption-Based Approaches
- Local or Territorial Emissions:
The traditional method cities use focuses on emissions from activities directly within city limits. This typically includes energy usage in buildings, vehicles, public transportation, and industrial facilities located inside the city. Policymaking is designed around these metrics, often producing data that can be tracked and regulated locally.
- Consumption-Based Emissions:
This method calculates all carbon generated supplying the goods and services consumed by residents, including those produced outside city boundaries. For example, the carbon emitted making steel for city buildings, food transported from afar, and millions of products imported from global markets. These emissions do not appear in traditional city accounting but are directly driven by city demand.
Why Are Consumption-Based Emissions So Important?
- Hidden Carbon Footprint: In populous, affluent cities, up to two-thirds or more of the total carbon attributable to residents occurs in goods manufactured elsewhere but consumed locally. This includes food, electronics, construction materials, clothing, and entertainment electronics.
- Global Impact: Urban areas account for approximately 75% of worldwide energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, much of this embedded in consumption-related processes outside city boundaries.
- Policy and Perception Gaps: Reliance on territorial inventories gives an incomplete picture and reinforces the misconception that cities can address climate change without considering broader supply chains or their citizens’ purchasing habits.
Case in Point: The Disconnect Between Territorial and Consumption Emissions
When urban leaders cite climate progress—such as shifting to electric buses or mandating energy-efficient buildings—they typically reference local data. Yet cities like New York, London, and Sydney have enormous carbon imports embedded in their lifestyles. For example, a single round-trip flight between New York and San Francisco can create two to three tons of carbon dioxide emissions per passenger, more than 10% of the average American’s annual footprint. These emissions are rarely counted in local statistics.
The Role of Urban Greenery in Carbon Absorption
Urban vegetation, such as trees in Los Angeles, can offset a surprisingly significant share of fossil fuel emissions—up to 60% during peak growing seasons, according to recent studies. Sensors deployed throughout neighborhoods track carbon dioxide fluctuations, showing greenery’s role is much bigger than previously estimated. However:
- Despite absorbing large amounts of CO₂, trees in cities can only offset about 30% of annual fossil fuel emissions.
- Emissions from cars, buildings, and industry consistently outpace what urban greenery can absorb, underscoring the need for more systemic solutions.
Urban Trees: Not A Silver Bullet
While investment in urban forestry improves air quality and offers local cooling benefits, true decarbonization demands deeper changes in policy, infrastructure, and especially consumption patterns.
Feedback Loops: Urbanization and Climate Change
The climate impacts of urban areas are compounded by a set of feedback mechanisms that worsen environmental and human well-being:
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- Urban Heat Island Effect (UHI): Dense urban surfaces absorb and radiate heat, driving up local temperatures, increasing cooling energy demand, and intensifying carbon emissions.
- Land Use Changes: Expansion replaces natural ecosystems with impervious surface, reducing carbon sinks and accelerating environmental degradation.
- Health Impacts: Heatwaves, dehydration, and related disorders disproportionately affect vulnerable city populations, while elevated pollution worsens respiratory conditions.
- Flooding and Water Scarcity: Shifts in precipitation and rising sea levels threaten infrastructure and strain resources for millions.
Why Consumption-Based Accounting Changes the Narrative
Including consumption-based emissions in climate planning compels cities to look outward as well as inward:
- Encouraging Sustainable Supply Chains: By demanding goods and services produced with lower carbon intensity, cities stimulate markets for sustainable products.
- Driving Circular Economy Principles: Focus on minimizing waste and maximizing reuse, recycling, and responsible sourcing reduces embedded emissions in urban lifestyles.
- Reframing Responsibility: Urban policymakers and residents become aware that local actions have global ripple effects, while shifting the focus from only ‘greening’ local infrastructure to systemic changes in consumption patterns.
Strategies for Cities: Consumption-Focused Climate Action
- Measure What Matters: Adopt metrics that include both local and consumption-based emissions for a complete emissions profile.
- Sustainable Procurement: Implement city purchasing guidelines favoring low-carbon and locally produced products, and require suppliers to meet climate standards.
- Low-Carbon Diets: Encourage residents to choose plant-based foods, reduce meat and dairy, and reduce food waste—all key drivers of import-linked emissions.
- Promote Shared and Circular Economy Models: Expand policies supporting repair, reuse, sharing, and recycling, extending the useful life of products.
- Community Awareness Programs: Launch campaigns that show citizens how everyday choices—from fashion and electronics to travel—impact the city’s true carbon footprint.
Challenges in Shifting to Consumption-Based Emissions Accounting
Addressing consumption-based emissions is complex due to:
- Difficulty accessing reliable data about supply chains and imported embodied carbon.
- Lack of standardized accounting methods for cross-boundary emissions.
- Potential conflicts between local economic growth objectives and broader sustainability goals.
- Political reluctance to confront difficult changes in residents’ lifestyles and entrenched patterns of consumption.
Successful Examples and Emerging Policies
- London: The city analyzed its consumption-driven emissions and found most carbon linked to imported goods and services, not local activity. London now seeks to influence its supply chains accordingly.
- Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Other Cities: Scandinavian cities have started tracking and reporting consumption-based carbon rates, developing targeted campaigns to reduce imported carbon.
- Los Angeles: Beyond investing in urban trees, partnership programs use real-time sensor networks to guide future greenery expansion for areas with the most need, while acknowledging the only way to meet net-zero goals is by cutting fossil fuel use.
Key Takeaways for Policymakers and Urban Dwellers
- Urban climate policy must expand beyond local emissions inventories to account for full consumption-driven impacts.
- Collaboration between cities, suppliers, and residents is essential to transform demand, supply chains, and infrastructure together.
- Data-driven monitoring and transparent reporting help clarify priorities and unlock smarter investments in sustainability.
- Systemic change is necessary: Green infrastructure alone is not enough—lifestyle choices and procurement policies shape the city’s real climate impact.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Q: What are consumption-based emissions?
A: Consumption-based emissions are all carbon emissions generated by producing, transporting, and disposing of goods and services consumed in a city, including those taking place outside city boundaries.
Q: Why don’t all cities include these emissions in their climate reporting?
A: Most cities rely on local and easily measured data, but international supply chains are complex, making it harder to track and allocate responsibility for consumption-driven emissions. Only a few pioneering cities have begun this accounting.
Q: How can cities take action if most emissions occur outside their boundaries?
A: Cities can use their purchasing power, set rules for suppliers, educate residents, and push for broader circular economy practices. By choosing imported goods with lower carbon footprints and supporting policies that encourage sustainable production globally, cities drive change beyond their borders.
Q: Is planting more trees in cities sufficient to reach net-zero goals?
A: Urban greenery helps absorb some carbon emissions and improves local air quality, but trees alone cannot offset the full scale of city-related emissions. Transformative change in energy use, infrastructure, and consumption patterns is required.
Q: How does the urban heat island effect relate to consumption emissions?
A: Warmer cities use more energy for cooling, driving electricity demand, which in turn often raises emissions, especially when power comes from fossil fuels. Consumption-based accounting captures these indirect emissions as part of the city’s total footprint.
Optimizing for the Future: Recommendations for Action
- Adopt formulas that consider both territorial and consumption-based carbon footprints when setting climate targets.
- Support the development and global standardization of supply chain transparency tools.
- Strengthen cross-sector partnerships to support sustainable market development, including circular design principles.
- Implement robust citizen engagement programs to align people’s daily buying choices with the city’s climate goals.
- Leverage advanced sensor and monitoring networks (as seen in Los Angeles) to track real-time changes and guide future investments.
Conclusion: Toward Truly Sustainable Cities
Cities will remain on the front lines of climate change—both as significant sources of emissions and as innovators in mitigation and adaptation. Real climate leadership means accounting for all impacts, including the hidden carbon embedded in everyday urban consumption. By expanding the lens of climate policy, cities can unlock powerful new pathways toward sustainability, resilience, and a livable future for all.
References
- https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/los-angeles-trees-absorb-more-carbon-emissions-than-expected/
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11474320/
- https://ecooptimism.com/?tag=treehugger
- https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/articles/the-circular-economy-a-missing-piece-in-city-climate-action-plans
- https://www.bu.edu/articles/2022/city-trees-and-soil-are-sucking-more-carbon-out-of-the-atmosphere-than-previously-thought/
- https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita
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