Climate Smart, Low Carbon Cities in China: Quarterly Progress Report FY2016 – January 1, 2016 to March 31, 2016

peers, while developing the skills they need to plan and implement effective low carbon solutions and meaningful emissions reductions. The activity builds on the foundation ISC has developed in China through the USAID-supported U.S.-China Partnership for Climate Action (PCA) program, which served to tackle carbon reduction in Chinese cities and factories by establishing training programs and institutions for key stakeholders. CSLCC is a targeted city-focused program to connect and support local leaders committed to climate smart low carbon development that will provide lasting impact for carbon reduction. Program activities will boost linkages at the sub-national level between the US and China, by enhancing the capacity of urban practitioners to identify and develop appropriate climate-smart urban strategies. Often urban practitioners in China lack exposure to positive examples on effective low carbon activities. By promoting exchanges with US cities, the project will pair cities sharing interest to develop similar low carbon urban strategies; ultimately resulting in implementation of practical, low carbon solutions. The overall goal of CSLCC is to reduce GHG emissions of Chinese urban areas. Specifically, CSLCC will work to achieve the following results: Intermediate Result: Increased adoption and implementation of low carbon strategies and activities; Sub-Intermediate Result: Technical capacity of local institutions in selected Chinese cities to assess, plan, and advance low carbon urban development strengthened. During the reporting period, the CSLCC team developed a set of criteria for selecting the CSLCC Chinese city partners. The criteria are designed to identify cities that exhibit a strategic combination of factors that will allow for maximum impact of the CSLCC activity. The CSLCC team also ranked the selection criteria, with willingness to participate, existing or emerging low-carbon strategies, and previous trusting working relationship with CSLCC partners identified as high priority criteria. The CSLCC team generated a long list of twelve potential city candidates based on previous trusting relationships with CSLCC partners and demonstrated interest in advancing low-carbon initiatives. The team and partner organizations conducted three rounds of assessments, including meetings and interviews, to evaluate the potential city candidates. After the assessments, four cities were selected as potential partners: Chenggong/Kunming, Chongqing, Zhenjiang, and the Chang-Zhu-Tan Cluster/Hunan. The four selected cities possess unique strengths as potential CSLCC partners in terms of their relative existing level of sophistication in low-carbon development and exposure to national/international low-carbon development programs. The CSLCC team has determined that, based on their specific low-carbon goals and clear commitment/motivation to strengthen local efforts, each of these four cities will be able to achieve meaningful improvements to their low-carbon strategies under CSLCC support. The CSLCC team will begin to conduct in-depth needs-wants and capacity assessments for each city partner and develop customized capacity building plans. The selection process is expected to be finalized in April 2016.