Energy Demand and Cities: Understanding the Complexity of Reduction Potential

This chapter introduces the approach of complexityComplexity science to the study of citiesCity in relation to energy demandDemand. Energy demand reductionReduction has been demonstrated to play a significant role in national emission reduction targets but achieving necessary reductions in energyEnergy demand has many (sometimes conflicting) implications for other UN Sustainable Development GoalsSustainable Development Goal. Whilst cities, and more broadly urbanisation, have been highlighted as offering potential opportunities for enabling energy demandDemand reduction, they can also represent opportunities for demand growth. As complex adaptive systems, cities are made of many different elements and relations in which many different pathways exist for the emergence of energy demand reductionReduction or growth. The interconnectivity (relations) and heterogeneityHeterogeneity (many) in cities are discussed in relation to energyEnergy demandDemand in citiesCity along with ideas of causation. These fundamental properties of complex city systems are then briefly discussed in relation to proposed national energy demand reduction scenariosScenario in the UK.