Cities Pioneering Climate Mitigation: A Report From Oslo’s Transition Away From Fossil Fuel

Cities are hot spots for knowledge, innovation, creativity, and financial resources, and serve at the forefront of the transition away from fossil fuels. The experimentation, growth, exchange of knowledge, and experience that cities bring to the table are crucial to enabling the scale and speed of the transition needed to tackle climate change globally. Green procurement, employed as an active demand-side mitigation measure, can be remarkably effective in kick-starting transformation. As a case example, this commentary presents lessons learned from Oslo’s effort to electrify the local construction industry. Zero emission construction has become the norm for public works in Oslo, even though heavy-duty electric machinery did not exist five years ago. The transformation has been supported by innovative urban planning regulation, targeted research, ongoing dialogue with relevant businesses, and investments in energy flexibility solutions. By working together to develop and share innovative solutions, cities can serve as large-scale testing grounds for new and more sustainable technologies and business models. Cities have assumed an active role in fighting climate change, inventing solutions, and increasing resilience. However, going forward, there is a need for more research, including on the policies and measures that are most effective in promoting the clean energy transformation in cities.