Sustainable energy development in cities is essential for promoting affordable access to energy for all, robust economic regeneration and development, and climate resilience. Prior studies have examined the role of urban energy policies in mobilising resources, expertise and collective action towards the decarbonisation of systems of energy supply and demand. Yet, the emergent concept and practice of Net-Zero Carbon (NZC) transitions create new realities and demands for sustainable energy policymaking, strategic planning, and stakeholder collaboration at the urban level. At the same time, the highly transformative scope of urban NZC transitions bears potential to accentuate energy-related risks and costs for different societal groups and individuals. The nature and workings of urban energy policies, therefore, can generate important repercussions for the course of the actual socio-ecological trajectories of urban NZC transitions.

Urban energy policymaking requires fresh and novel approaches to promote NZC transformation. Integrated planning frameworks, carefully crafted strategic plans and inclusive multi-stakeholder collaborations around urban energy, that span across sectors of the economy and spatial scales, will be integral to any viable NZC transition. As such, there is a need to gain deeper understanding of the ways in which urban energy policies organize and coordinate, or hinder, plans, activities and collaborations for NZC transitions. Simultaneously, the uneven socio-economic impacts that urban energy policies may generate across society require a thorough examination in order to better evaluate risks and opportunities for different sectors, communities and individuals, as well as identify new types of uncertainty, and new dimensions of inequality.

Uncovering the scope, operationalisation and outcomes of transition-oriented urban energy policies, thus, can offer a finer view into the gaps, good practices, contradictions and implications of urban NZC transitions.

The scope of this Research Topic is to gain a deeper insight into the new challenges, practicalities and implications of urban energy policymaking in a NZC transition context. We welcome Original Research articles, Review articles, Policy & Practice Reviews, as well as theoretical contributions, that address from single/comparative and Global North/South perspectives, the following themes:

-Urban energy policy characteristics and processes for NZC transitions (e.g. urban greening policy; energy re-municipalisation; energy efficiency retrofit policies; policy cycles; policy coordination).

-Stakeholder collaborations and participatory methods in the context of NZC urban energy policymaking (e.g. multi-actor cooperative agendas & organisational frameworks; conflict resolution; interactions between state, market and civil society actors at the city-scale).

-Urban energy policies for socially-just NZC transitions (e.g. intersectional analysis of inequalities; policy drivers and limitations for transitional justice).

-The governance of NZC urban energy policymaking (e.g. institutional & social innovation; exnovation; modes of goverance; role of states in transition; transition politics).

-NZC transitions at the urban energy-transport interface (e.g. interactions between energy and transport planning; local bus electrification & hydrogen fuel supply chains; novel approaches to transportation of goods such as ‘last mile delivery’; new solutions like emission reduction through AI technology, i.e. autonomous vehicles, route optimisation).

-NZC transitions at the urban energy-water interface (e.g. interactions between energy and water planning).

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Frontiers in Sustainable Energy Policy

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