Maximising Europe’s Low Carbon Activities: Moving from Individual Projects to Challenge-led Programmes

The past decade has seen the emergence of new policy thinking in Europe on the transition to a low-carbon society. The designation of climate change as the ‘biggest market failure ever’ made by the Stern Review, The Economics of Climate Change 2006 1 has led to a widespread view that such a transition has to involve public and governmental action, as well as emergent market processes. Cities are absolutely central to this process.