Accelerating the transition to equitable, sustainable, and livable cities: Toward post-fossil carbon societies

Rapid urbanization brought many environmental issues, leading to an urgent need on urban environmental governance. This special issue aims to focus on such a topic so that cities can accelerate their transition to equitable, sustainable, and livable Cities. Twenty-six papers were selected in this special issue, with different foci on different topics in different cities. These papers can be categorized into the following: reviews, policy orientations, metric and indicators, consumer behaviors and lifestyles, innovative designs and implementations, and tools. These papers discuss various topics related with urban environmental governance and can provide valuable insights to those city managers so that they can improve their environmental governance and move their cities toward post-fossil carbon societies. By summarizing the key contributions of these papers, an integrated framework on effective urban environmental governance is proposed so that cities can increase their resources efficiency, reduce overall waste production, and respond global climate change.