Supportive Political and Legal Context. As its capital city, London is within the jurisdiction of the national government of the United Kingdom (no other level of governance sits between the UK government and the GLA). Until 31st January 2020 the UK was also a Member State of the European Union (EU), and thus in receipt of all the benefits and obligations this supranational governance structure bestows. At the time of writing, the UK is in the ‘Transition Period’ during which the future relationship between the EU and the UK is under negotiation, and retains the vast majority of these benefits and obligations. The status of this future relationship remains unclear, however for the purposes of this report, we assume the EU will remain a relevant entity in the political and legal context for climate action at the city-level. European Union Since 2009, the EU has sought to achieve an 80% reduction in GHG emissions from 1990 levels (with intermediate targets for 2020 and 2030), with analysis by the Commission suggesting at least a 60% GHG emission reduction would be required from the transport sector by 2050 to achieve this (EC, 2011). In July 2016, the Commission published its Low Emission Mobility Strategy, reiterating the 60% target, but adding that by 2050 GHG emissions from transport must be ‘firmly on the path towards zero’ (EC, 2016, p.2). This strategy identified three priority areas for action: (1) increasing the efficiency of the transport system; (2) speeding up the deployment of low-emission alternative energy for transport; and (3) moving towards zero- emission vehicles (EC, 2020). The Strategy proposed a range of (new and revised) policy measures to achieve these objectives, the most relevant of which are discussed below. In November 2018, the European Commission proposed that the EU revise its overarching GHG emission target to aim for net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050. This was subsequently endorsed by the European Parliament and European Council, in March 2019 and January 2020 respectively (with the European Commission then proposing in March 2020 to enshrine this target in law). This increase in ambition requires the transport sector to achieve a 90% reduction by 2050 from 1990 levels (EC, 2019), a target which the ‘Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy’, along with an Action Plan of 82 initiatives, and presented by the European Commission December 2020, is intended to address. Over time, a range of mechanisms have been mobilised at the EU level to help reduce GHG...
Supportive Political and Legal Context. The state of Germany is a federal republic, in which responsibilities are divided among different levels of government. The federal government has the sole legislative power in very few policy areas, these include the national railroad system. In most policy areas, the state (Länder) governments and the federal government share legislative responsibility. Most commonly, the federal government sets framework legislation, the execution of which is in the state’s hands with varying degrees of flexibility. However, the states are exclusively in charge of education, public health management, many areas of environmental protection, and to some extent regional infrastructure (Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, 2009). At sub-state level, municipalities are required to provide for infrastructural amenities such as roads and utilities. The federal government is responsible for transposing European legislation into national law. A description of the political and legal context provided at the EU level is described above, in Section 3.1.
