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Purpose – This chapter reflects on the role of cycling in India, Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, discusses and compares explanatory factors of cycling behaviour and provides three methods of spatial analysis that can feed into local transport policy and planning.

Approach – The chapter compares important relevant contextual issues and challenges and presents examples of ongoing research on three continents.

Findings – The findings are in the first instance methodological in nature. Methods have been developed to assess the effect of barriers on access by bicycle, to quantify the avoided carbon emission associated with cycling and to help plan a demand-based cycling network.

Practical implications – Three different spatial analysis methods are presented: the planning of new bicycle infrastructure, the evaluation of existing cycling in terms of avoided carbon emission and the role of the physical environment in levels of cycling accessibility. The methods can be easily replicated and integrated into transport policy and planning at the local level.

Social implications – Effective cycling-inclusive planning in developing countries is expected to lead to higher levels of cycling that positively affect people's welfare, health and the environment.

Value of chapter – The chapter affirms that a thorough understanding of physical, social, economic and cultural factors of the developing city context are important in effective cycling-inclusive planning. It provides three relatively simple and replicable methods that are considered particularly appropriate for data scarce developing cities.

Purpose – This chapter shows the politics, plans, strategies, initiatives Municipality of Milan is putting in place, in the European Union context, in order to reduce its green gas emissions and to mitigate the negative effects of climate change.

Design/methodology/approach – The study was conducted on the basis of primary and secondary sources, in particular the analysis of municipal official documents.

Findings – The city of Milan structured its strategy against climate change in two branches: on one hand Milan takes part of national and international networks, on the other hand it acts at local level through the adoption of an ad hoc plan (called ‘Piano Clima’).

Originality/value – Among other things, this study shows the relevance of cooperation with different and similar urban areas. In fact, in order – both – to plan and to implement the most part of its initiatives against climate change, the contacts, exchanges, relations with other cities have been and will be of vital relevance for the city of Milan. From the experiences of peers, you can learn, for example, what measures are most effective, what measures are the easiest to implement and most accepted by citizens, how to implement measures.

Purpose – Emissions trading is often heralded as an efficient approach to environmental regulation. In the mid-90s Communities for a Better Environment (CBE), a Los Angeles-based advocacy organization, raised concerns that emissions trading in the South Coast Air Basin, the most polluted region in Southern California, would result in environmental injustice. The organizations concerns received mixed responses from regulators. Historical analysis is used to assess the clash between emissions trading and environmental justice (EJ).

Methodology/approach – Emissions trading and EJ arose side by side between the 1960s and the 1990s, yet they disagree on how to clean the air. Historical analysis of legal documents, presidential addresses, letters, working papers, reports, and the like offers a better understanding of the development of emissions trading and EJ, and their intersection in environmental policy.

Findings – Emissions trading was grafted onto Clean Air Act policies not inherently designed for their incorporation. As a result, emissions trading came into direct philosophical opposition with EJ as political pressures calling for both economically efficient antiregulatory-ism and environmental equity forced their intersection. Formally, regional and national government accepted EJ as part of law. However, in principle, emissions trading undermined this acceptance. As a result, CBE could not easily win or explicitly lose its battle against emissions trading.

Originality/value of paper – Previous work on the relationship between emissions trading and EJ tend to focus on legal analysis and normative implications of emissions trading. Putting emissions trading and environment justice into historical perspective helps to illuminate larger questions about EJ activism and policy. Also, as California, the United States, and Europe turn to emissions trading to combat not only air pollution but also climate change, important lessons can be learned from the histories and collision of emissions trading and EJ.

This chapter provides an overview of the current political regulations on aviation’s climate relevant emissions in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand and of the planned regulations in other parts of the world. In a next step, the cost impacts of most of these regulations on air freight will be quantified. This way, the economic impacts of environmental regulations on air freight can be estimated.

The main results indicate that cost impacts on air freight services induced by political measures for the reduction of aviation’s climate relevant emissions turn out to be small. This is true for both local emission charges on nitrous oxide (NO _X ) and hydrocarbon (HC) emissions which are in force at a number of European airports and the European emissions trading scheme for the limitation of CO₂ emissions.

In the 1930s, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were developed as safe, non-reactive alternatives to toxic and explosive refrigerants and propellants such as ammonia, chloromethane, and sulfur dioxide. American engineer Thomas Midgley famously demonstrated these properties by inhaling Freon (CFC-12) and blowing out a candle with it. He was presented with many awards for his discoveries, such as the Perkin, Priestley, and William Gibbs medals. In today's jargon, CFCs might have been called an eco-innovation, because they provided solutions to several environmental issues. However, CFCs solved environmental problems by creating others. In 1974, Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina published their pathbreaking research that demonstrated CFCs were depleting the ozone layer. In 1989, the Montreal Protocol, which regulates a global phaseout of CFCs, entered into force. A few years later, in 1995, Rowland and Molina received the Nobel Price in Chemistry. The new substitutes for CFCs, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), have no known effects on the ozone layer but are extremely potent greenhouse gases (GHGs) and thus subject to the Kyoto Protocol.

Purpose – Many cities have taken action in order to reduce their carbon footprints. Moreover, the European city has historically been the home of democratic institutions, which have proven to be crucial for successful policy. The leading question of this chapter is whether or not this traditional link between democracy and active citizen participation also holds with respect to local climate policy.

Design/methodology/approach – In our chapter, we take a comparative look at two cities – Muenster in Rhineland Westphalia and Potsdam, the capital of Brandenburg next to Berlin. We have a look at the track records of both cities’ carbon footprint and analyze the role of civil society in local climate policy. We develop a set of qualitative indicators, measuring local climate policy outcomes on the one hand and local climate policy performance on the other. We base our analysis on documents and on stakeholder interviews in both cities.

Findings – The findings show that Muenster has performed better in urban climate protection than Potsdam. Also the level of civil society engagement is higher in Muenster. Thus, the hypothesis that cities with a higher level of civil society engagement also perform better in urban climate policy can be confirmed. However, Muenster performs just slightly better than Potsdam. Both cities have failed to meet their climate goals. A closer look to the local climate policy performance leads us to the final conclusion that cities should be more active in supporting and including citizens in their local climate policies in all areas of life – including lifestyle politics and political consumerism.

Hospitality, constituting an essential component of the tourism industry, is a sector characterized by many feasible opportunities to cut carbon dioxide emissions and to reduce the use of resources. Hence this chapter, drawing on the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR), focuses on the way the hospitality sector copes with climate change. Its principal aim is to show what international hospitality companies, which are regarded as pioneers of CSR-inspired environmentalism, have done to mitigate the effects of global warming. In doing so, the chapter critically examines innovative measures and instruments introduced by top hotel chains within their CSR programs with an aim of reducing their carbon footprint. It lays emphasis on the practical dimension, highlighting the nature and effectiveness of concrete initiatives, and the issues that arise during the implementation process. The chapter concludes by providing specific managerial-policy guidelines, thereby contributing to the dissemination of best practice, and suggestions for further research.